This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: TIME
11/12/2020
A new book, excerpted here, assess everyday life under Nazism by attention to the lives of the wives of leading Nazis.
Source: The New Yorker
11/12/2020
by Corey Robin
A new book on Max Weber's political thought suggests that prior interpretations of Weber's lectures have dismissed the possibility of collective action.
Source: Black Perspectives
11/17/2020
Garrett Felber's book takes a new look at the Nation of Islam and reveals a multifaceted freedom struggle that focused as much on policing and prisons as on school desegregation and voting rights.
Source: Smithsonian
11/12/2020
Presidential historian Craig Fehrman says that presidents in the early republican period shunned writing memoirs as vain and self-promoting. The quality of many subsequent presidential books suggests they were on to something. How will the recent first volume of Obama's memoirs be received?
Source: New York Times
11/12/2020
Two historians of science have traced the ownership and sharing of Sir Isaac Newton's first edition of "Principia" to conclude that the book was more widely read and influential among Enlightenment thinkers than previously believed.
Source: WBUR
11/12/2020
Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat studies authoritarian regimes, like Italy under Mussolini. Can a democracy pry itself out of a strongman's grip?
Source: American Conservative
11/11/2020
by Daniel Larison
A conservative historian reviews a new book on the history of American interventionism and advocates for reorganizing foreign policy without the imperative to dominate the world.
Source: The Hill
11/13/2020
Historian Matt Karp argues that the Democratic Party risks future defeat if it does not develop a strong economic populist message that appeals to Black and Latino voters.
Source: Leominster (MA) Champion
11/16/2020
Fitchburg (MA) State University professor Katherine Rye Jewell has been named to a Library of Congress task force for the preservation of college and community radio.
Source: Public Books
11/11/2020
A new book evaluates the origins and political evolution of "coming out" in gay America.
Source: New York Times
11/14/2020
Although dogs will return to the White House in January and revive a long tradition, past presidents have kept some unusual pets (also, Calvin Coolidge was gifted a raccoon to eat for Thanksgiving dinner).
Source: The Nation
11/16/2020
Magda Teter's new book examines the history of the pernicious antisemitic myth, its cultivation by Christian authorities, and its amplification by the growth of print and literacy in renaissance Europe.
Source: Public Books
11/16/2020
by Thomas J. Sugrue
Crisis Cities is a public symposium on the 2020 crises and their impact on urban life, co-organized by Public Books and the NYU Cities Collaborative.
Source: New York Times
11/10/2020
by Francis Fukuyama
The political theorist Francis Fukuyama offers a brief review of Ruth Ben-Ghiat's book on authoritarian strongmen, and suggests paying more attention to Trump's unique characteristics in order to prepare for future instances of Trumpism.
Source: New York Times
11/11/2020
Reagan biographer Lou Cannon and historian Rick Perlstein contend the series misconstrues Reagan's politics by portraying him as a dog-whistling race baiter (Cannon says it's flat wrong, Perlstein says it's more complicated than that).
Source: The Way of Improvement Leads Home
11/13/2020
by John Fea
When right-wing outrage merchants charge professors with thought crimes, is it ethical for the media to amplify those charges without investigation? Tucker Carlson says "sure."
Source: The Atlantic
11/12/2020
Writer Graeme Wood profiles Peter Turchin, whose data-driven and predictive approach appeals to quantitative thinkers but is scorned by some historians. Turchin's analytics predict a period of political and social upheaval in industrialized societies.
Source: The Revealer
11/12/2020
Journalist Daniel José Camacho reviews Kristin Kobes Du Mez's book "Jesus and John Wayne" and considers the way that masculinities are expressed in non-white evangelical communities.
Source: New York Times
11/20/2020
The families of victims of Argentina's far-right "dirty war" didn't let the perpetrators go unpunished after regime change; they took direct action to expose those who committed crimes and pressed for the repeal of amnesty laws.
Source: Smithsonian
11/10/2020
A recent paper by a researcher at th Schuyler Mansion looks into Alexander Hamilton's papers to argue that is reputation as an abolitionist is undeserved; he had personal dealings in purchasing enslaved laborers for his household.
