Historians/History

An Unwanted Journey "Home": Black American Internees in World War II Europe

by Eve Brandel

"Living in Europe in the interwar years, Black Americans enjoyed freedoms denied them at home, but, ironically, America’s entry into World War II meant arrest and internment for those who had not left in time."

Twenty Years Ago, Rioters Tried to Stop a Presidential Vote Count – and Succeeded

by Robert Brent Toplin

On November 22, 2000 a mob succeeded in deciding a presidential election. 

Photography Always Needed the Presidents

by Cara Finnegan

In the 1840s, the new technology of photography staked its place in the culture as an authoritative, reliable recording of events through the creation of images of the presidents or, in the case of George Washington, pictures of pictures of the presidents. 

A Ghost of Galileo in the English Civil War

by John Heilbron

An obscure English painting containing an image of Galileo's "Dialogues" launches a deep consideration of the political and intellectual stakes of free inquiry during the English Civil War.

The Original Storming of the Capitol

by Stephen Dando-Collins

The January 6, 2021 siege of the Capitol in Washington DC has eerie parallels with a much earlier event, the AD 69 siege of the Capitoline Mount in Rome.

Who Deserves Credit for Inventing Vaccination? And Why Does it Matter Today?

by John Rhodes

Historical honesty requires acknowledging the African and Asian inoculation practices that preceded and enabled Edward Jenner's smallpox vaccine. Telling this story more broadly might also encourage vulnerable communities of color to embrace the COVID vaccine.

"Hamilton" and Politics Today

by Donald J. Fraser

The phenomenally successful "Hamilton" takes some liberties with its subject, but it still offers some valuable perspective on our politics today. 

Advice to POTUS 46 from POTUS 1

by David O. Stewart

The author of a recent political biography of George Washington wonders how the first president would guide the most recent one. 

King’s Final Book: Both Political Roadmap and Passionate Sermon

by Fred Zilian

As Black History Month unfolds amid an atmosphere of crisis and division like that which prevailed in 1968, it's worth revisiting Martin Luther King's publication that year of "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community" – a call for reordering national priorities toward justice through politics and for renewed spiritual and ethical dedication to shared humanity.

A Lesson Unity and Renewal: George Washington and the Building of the Capital City

by Robert P. Watson

The decision to create a national capital city and the execution of the plan was an underappreciated legacy of George Washington's leadership and a key force uniting a fragile new nation. 

Not the First Mob Attack on the Government in D.C.

by Stan M. Haynes

An angry mob threatened John Tyler and his family in the White House and burnt him in effigy on the grounds after he vetoed the Whig Party's bill for a second Bank of the United States in 1841, leading Congress to authorize a night police patrol for the District of Columbia. 

Young Du Bois in Germany: On the “Great Socialistic State of the Day"

by Helmut Smith

As graduate student visiting imperial Germany in 1892, W.E.B. Du Bois was shaped by observations of social welfare policy and experiences of social acceptance that contrasted dramatically with Gilded Age and Jim Crow America. 

Who Can Claim to be the United States’ First University?

by Tom McSweeney, Katharine Ello and Elsbeth O'Brien

New documentary evidence shows that the College of William and Mary was chartered as a university in 1693, making it the first university in the colonies. The story reflects how the sectarian strife of England in the seventeenth century helped Anglican W&M and harmed Puritan Harvard. 

Poverty, Politics and Pandemic: The Plague and the English Peasant's Revolt of 1381

by Alfred Thomas and Peter Rutland

Seen in a historical context of pandemic-induced paranoia, antisemitic conspiracy, and broad-based resentment, the English rebels start to look less like the innocent victims of tyranny and more like the Trump supporters who invaded the Capitol.

Democracy, Violence, and the Legacy of the American Revolution

by David W. Houpt

Although many of the Capitol rioters claimed to defend the Constitution, their actions reflect ideas derived from the Revolutionary period that the people have the right to resist tyranny by force. The Constitution sought to check that impulse by establishing a representative republic and a cultural bargain to live by the results of elections, but the two ideas have never been resolved.

Hidden in Plain Sight: History Teaching Needs to Take Advantage of Art and Material Culture

by Elizabeth Stice

"Where there is passion, people will pursue the past. A sneakerhead can tell you about the innovations in Air Jordans over the years and oftentimes quite a bit about the economic and cultural context of each shoe. Art and material culture can lead people to their own study of the past."

"Hands Off Until He Was Safe Over": David Reynolds Urges Biden to Look to Lincoln

by James Thornton Harris

Historian David S. Reynolds recently published Abe: Abraham Lincoln and his Times, a cultural biography that shows how the 16th president was shaped by the many social currents swirling in the young United States.

George Washington Resisted the Siren Call of Absolute Power

by Jan-Benedict Steenkamp

George Washington is celebrated for his refusal to continue past two terms as President. But his earlier actions in refusing the leadership of a military coup against the Continental Congress in 1783 put the new nation on track to have civilian leadership under law. 

Cheese to Chalk: Can Democracies be Compared to Dictatorships?

by Leonid Luks

A German historian argues that American scholars and commentators have for years been too quick to equate antidemocratic measures taken by Republicans with Hitler's seizure of dictatorial power, dismissing ample research on the nature of totalitarian regimes. The last three months have shown that America's core institutions are not weak enough to be crushed. 

1964: The Election that Turned American Politics Tribal

by James A. Morone

In 1964, George Wallace's primary challenge to LBJ inspired Republicans to take up the mantle of the white party. Trumpism represents the dead end of that path.