HNN Rundowns
 Joyce Appleby Backing Petition to Disarm the Filibuster Nearly one hundred historians have signed. If you would like to sign the petition, email Joyce Appleby at appleby@history.ucla.edu. |
 Richard Nixon at 100: The Man Who Matters Nixon endures as the commanding figure of American political life since the end of World War II. |
Up Front: AHA 2013
 Highlights from the 2013 Annual Meeting of the AHA |
 AHA Roundup: The Rest of the Web A (reasonably) comprehensive collection of articles and blogs on the 2013 AHA Annual Meeting, plus picks of the best blogs. |
 Survival Guide for the 2013 AHA Annual Meeting For those attending, both in the flesh and in spirit. |
AHA Videos
 VIDEO: The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers Newspapers aren't dead yet, but they're struggling. What are some of the alternatives to the venerable daily newspaper? |
 A Conversation with John Sayles Featuring the acclaimed filmmaker, William Cronon, Peter Galison, and Vanessa R. Schwartz |
 Open Societies at War: A Comparative History, 1939-45 George C. Marshall Lecture in Military History |
 Storytelling The outgoing president's keynote address. |
 Taking a Longer View: The 2012 Election in Historical Context Featuring Jim Grossman, Laura Kalman, Sean Wilentz, William Inboden, and Mary Frances Berry. |
Blogs
 "Fix the Debt": Sheer Hypocrisy or a Myth Worth Debating? |
 Why Some Americans Want Big Guns Paranoia strikes deep. |
 The New Age of Austerity Perhaps it's time to revisit some ideas from the Second New Deal. |
 Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation as an Exercise in Muscular Moderation His genius lay in his judgment. |
News at Home
 Disarm the Filibuster It's undemocratic and, more importantly, unconstitutional. |
 Has a Tipping Point Finally Been Reached for Gun Control? The NRA sounds as ridiculous today as the AMA did in the 1960s opposing "communist" Medicare. |
News Abroad
 “So Many People Died” The American system of suffering, 1965-2014. |
Historians & History
 When Assessing Zinn, Listen to the Voices of Teachers and Students Yes, A People's History is provocative, but that's the point: to serve as a contrast to standard textbooks. |
 Did George McGovern Misremember His Past as a Bomber Pilot? The senator's famed anecdote from The Wild Blue could not have happened. |
 Red Menace The heavy hand of politics and the historical novels of Howard Fast. |
Culture Watch
 The Law of Slavery Lies at Heart of Both "Lincoln" and "Django" |
Books
 Review of Joseph McCartin's Collision Course As organized labor fights for its life in the Midwest, it's worth considering why Reagan beat PATCO in 1981. |
 Review of Dennis Drabelle's The Great American Railroad War A stimulating appetizer when it comes to railroad history. |
Blogs
 "The Other Civil War" Howard Zinn, Abraham Lincoln, Lerone Bennett, Stephen Spielberg, and Me |
 Why are High-Capacity Magazines Still Legal? There's no valid non-military reason to own one. |
News at Home
 What About All the Thousands of Other Kids Killed with Guns? Why does it take a "massacre of the innocents" in order to effect change? |
 Gun Control and Arms Control Using the UN to solve both. |
News Abroad
 Were U.S. Marines Used as Guinea Pigs on Okinawa? New evidence that American soldiers were knowingly exposed to nerve gas. |
Historians & History
 Improvising Digital History in the Deep South Digital Desert How to make digital history beyond the coasts. |
The Grand Emancipation Jubilee How did the public celebrate the proclamation 150 years ago, in 1863? |
 Where Are the Pseudohistory Wars? Immanuel Velikovsky's pseudoscientific theories also had an historical component, so why isn't he labeled a pseudohistorian? |
 Picturing the History of Sexuality in America What’s the first image that comes to mind when you think of the word “sex”? |
Books
 Review of The United States and the Second World War, edited by G. Kurt Piehler and Sidney Pash It's ... pretty good. |
 Review of William Thomas Allison's My Lai: An American Atrocity in the Vietnam War It's ... also pretty good. |
Up Front
Is Christmas a Pagan Holiday? We hear this "fact" a lot, but there's little in the historical record about non-Greco-Roman, non-Christian religions in Europe. |
The New Age of Austerity What any student of Econ 101 should have known, bu the pols in the UK didn't. |
 Lincoln, Spielberg, Sandburg, Kennedy, and Compromise The art of compromise--the double entendre. |
 The Federal Government Should Hold On To General Motors The Founding Fathers would hang onto those GM shares. |
 Florida Historians Standing Up to Rick Scott His attempt to devour the liberal arts at the University of Florida is meeting resistance. |
 Where Howard Zinn's A People's History Falls Short It's closer to classic (and flawed) textbooks than most want to admit. |
HNN Special: Gun Violence
 The End of American Innocence -- Again… The Sandy Hook massacre must not rob us of our zest for life, or our faith in ourselves. |
 Gun Control: The New Abolitionism? Is Newtown the Uncle Tom's Cabin moment for the gun control movement?
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 Mandate Gunowners Purchase Firearms Liability Insurance One simple, bipartisan way to respond to the Newtown massacre. |
 How Could This Happen?! It's inexplicable... |
 The deadly elementary school shooting in Connecticut will restart a debate on gun control. Here's what historians have to say. |
News at Home
 How to Fight the Tragedy of Global Hunger this Holiday Season The "Invisible Guest" world food campaign of the 1920s should be a model for us today |
 The Words that Mattered in 2012 From "You didn't build that!" to the "47 percent." |
 Does Jesse Helms Deserve to Have a Courthouse Named After Him? Sam Ervin was also a segregationist, but he's celebrated as the hero of the Watergate hearings. |
 The Myth of the Skyscraper Index Skyscrapers can't be used to predict the ups and downs of the business cycle. |
 Everything you always wanted to know about Christmas but were afraid to ask. |
News Abroad
 Better Dictators than Elected Islamists Mubarak was more interested in maintaining power than radically changing the structure of Egyptian society. |
Historians & History
 Erwin Rommel: Courageous Hero or Cynical Opportunist? The debate in Germany over the one "good" general of World War II. |
 The Historical Dimension of the Spy Thriller Why World War II remains the pre-eminent setting for historical fiction ... and espionage. |
Culture Watch
 Revival of 1930s Golden Boy Is an Historical Knockout Clifford Odets's classic is back at the historic Belasco Theatre. |
 Lincoln's Unfinished Work When will a movie tackle Reconstruction? |
_1.jpg) Actors as Historians From John Wayne to Daniel Day-Lewis, actors have (unwittingly) made historical arguments with their performances. |
 When Will Marvin Miller Be Inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame? Probably not for a long time, but by unionizing the MLB, he changed the game forever. |
Books
 Review of Elton Trueblood's Abraham Lincoln: Lessons in Spiritual Leadership Just in time to cash in on the Lincoln movie phenomenon, a issue of a 1973 classic. |
 Review of H.W. Brands's The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace |
Up Front
 America's Proud Individualism Helped Pull the Trigger And it's not just guns -- our approach to mental health care remains saddeningly in the nineteenth century. |
The deadly elementary school shooting in Connecticut will restart a debate on gun control. Here's what historians have to say. |
 And the Best History Book of 2012 Is... We asked our readers what, in their opinion, is the best history book of 2012. Over fifty books were nominated. Five books made the shortlist. One book won. |
The Historical Dimension of the Spy Thriller Why World War II remains the pre-eminent setting for historical fiction ... and espionage. |
 HNN Hot Topics: "Lincoln" the Movie Pictured at left: Abraham Lincoln. The real one. But Daniel Day-Lewis is pretty convincing. |
Blogs
 Reviewlets Reviewing the parts of books I've read so far. |
Google Questions
 What Killed the Talking Filibuster? Massive abuse of senatorial holds is (partly) to blame. |
 How Historically Accurate is "Lincoln"? Very. |
News at Home
 How to Solve the "Fiscal Cliff" Problem Responsibly Implement Tom Coburn's "Back in Black" recommendations. |
 Will Puerto Rico Become the 51st State? Not likely, as long as the Republicans still control the House. |
News Abroad
 Why Don't Americans Like the United Nations? Because of asinine resolutions like 1975's "Zionism = racism," which Daniel Patrick Moynihan argued so forcefully against. |
Historians & History
 What Was Healthcare Like in the 1800s? In America, it was marked by an astounding resistance to science and professionalism. |
Education
 Will the Real Abraham Lincoln Please Stand Up? It's astonishing how much students don't know about Lincoln and emancipation. |
 The Argument for Public Support of the Liberal Arts The 1862 Morrill Act honored the liberal arts as well as technical education. |
Culture Watch
 Another Christmas Season, Another Production of A Christmas Carol |
Books
 Review of Edward Wilson’s The Midnight Swimmer A spy novel which makes a worthy companion to the best of John le Carré. |
What is the Best History Book of 2012? |
Up Front: "Lincoln"
 How Historically Accurate is Spielberg's "Lincoln"? Louis Masur: Not everything in the movie is 100% accurate, but most of it is, and the level of detail's incredible. [PODCAST] |
HNN Hot Topics: "Lincoln" the Movie Pictured at left: Abraham Lincoln. The real one. But Daniel Day-Lewis is pretty convincing. |
 HNN on Zeen: Special "Lincoln" issue |
Blogs
 Cheer Up, Rush: Dems Keep "Traditional America" Alive The Obama White House sends out a holiday postcard worthy of Romneyland. |
Google Questions
 How Was History Made in the 2012 Election? The 113th Congress will have a record number of women serving. |
News at Home
 The Hollowing Out of America How the financial industry sucked the lifeblood out of America's industrial heartland. |
 How Republicans See Democrats The party of treason. |
 How Can We Make Congress Work Better? We need to find a way to end the permanent campaign. |
 Are Evangelicals Politically Homeless? Independent evangelicals are caught between hostile Democrats and hard-edged Republicans. |
News Abroad
 Gaza's Not the Key, Philadelphi Is Israel should reassert its control over the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt. |
 “It’s Mostly Punishment…” Testimonies by veterans of the Israeli Defense Forces From Gaza and the Occupied Territories. |
Historians & History
 Thomas Jefferson: Monster? Let's get beyond the moral indignation about Jefferson and slavery and start examining how and why those power structures worked. |
 Remembering Alfred F. Young, 1925-2012 The modern practice of public historian owes him a huge debt. |
Education
 School Closings and Public Policy The anatomy of a catastrophe. |
Culture Watch
 What Argo Gets Wrong About the 1953 Iran Coup Yes, the CIA was involved, but the plot originated in London, not Washington. |
 2012: Mayan Apocalypse Watch The end of the world is not actually coming, but here's why this weird belief is still out there. |
 America's Real Religion: Shopping 'Tis the season... |
Books
 Review of Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick's The Untold History of the United States Sheds light on overlooked history, but gets JFK wrong. |
 Review of Melinda L. Pash’s In the Shadow of the Greatest Generation: The Americans Who Fought the Korean War |
