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The Great Recession of 2008 and the Sordid Historiography of the Great Depression

by Robert E. Wright

Guillermo Rosas and Nathan Jensen, political scientists at Washington University in St. Louis, find no statistical evidence that government bailouts implemented worldwide between 1970 and 2007 ameliorated

Obama and U.S. Foreign Policy

by K.C. Johnson

Historians, of all people, should understand the dangers of prematurely evaluating a President’s foreign policy record. Quite apart from all that we learn

Is Wartime a Time to End Don't Ask, Don't Tell?

by Mary L. Dudziak

As the Obama Administration moves (slowly) toward repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, one argument in opposition is that the nation is at wa

Once Again the State of the Union Makes a President Strong

by Gil Troy

The State of the Union Address is Woodrow Wilson’s gift to future presidents. President Thomas Jefferson submitted the annual update the Constitution manda

Presidential Inaugurations from Washington to Obama

by Sandra Moats

On January 20, 2009, the newly inaugurated president, Barack Obama, and his wife Michelle abandoned their presidential limousine and walked down Pennsylvania Avenue, a gesture that elicited widespre

"Hands off My Medicare": The Deadly Legacy of Social Insurance

by Colin Gordon

House and Senate Democrats hammering out the health care bills share the conviction that only those who pay into the insurance system are deserving of its benefits. This may be good politics, but it's bad public policy. And, while appealing to moderates in both parties, it's an assumption that's going to doom health care reform. This "social insurance" system is organized around regular contributions from wage earners. These contributions are then returned in the form of benefits (funeral expenses, pensions, unemployment insurance). It works, in other words, more like a toll road than a public right-of-way. The on-ramp to that toll road is a "covered job," the point at which revenues are collected and benefits are disbursed.

Rethinking MLK and Vietnam

by Michael H. Carriere

Throughout this week, educators across the globe will stray from their lesson plans to discuss the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.  Undoubtedly, many such discussions will focus on the landmark events of King’s career, including the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  This latter moment will receive the most attention, as it was at the march that King gave his seminal “I Have a Dream” speech, a speech t

Toward a More Complete MLK Day

by Simon Balto

This week, as we honor the life of Dr.  Martin Luther King, Jr., I would like to suggest that we try to expand our commemorative efforts beyond celebrations of nonviolence, “brotherhood,” and the “beloved community,” and towards a more complete and accurate depiction of King—one that understands him as much more radical and revolutionary than tends to be historically acknowledged.  Partly, this is because I worry that, the more we repeat this famili

How the Professional Media Creates Its Own Reality

by Jack R. Censer and Jerry Prout

Americans trying to take a collective deep breath after September 11, 2001, found themselves the very next fall unexpectedly confronting another form of terror.  Over a harrowing period of three weeks in October 2002, in and around Washington D.C, anonymous snipers trained their high

Reid's Obama Blunder and What It Means

by Adriane Lentz-Smith

What do we talk about when we talk about race?  Or, more pointedly, what do we talk about when we talk about the foolish things that people sometimes say?  Reporters Mark Halperin and John Heilemann ha

What Obama is Doing Wrong

by Judith Apter Klinghoffer

Candidate Barack Obama challenged Americans to be audacious enough to hope that being perceived as racist bullies was at the root of all their security and economic woes.  The best way forward, therefore, was to elect as president a first term multiracial senator who would change the “unfair” free enterprise system.  The majority of American voters accepted the challenge, to worldwide cheers.  The greatest achievement of the Obama presidency has now been to p

Why It's Unlikely Obama Will Suffer Carter's Fate

by Ashley Wayne Cruseturner

A whole host of conservative commentators and bloggers have taken to predicting that the presidency of Barack Obama will replicate the tragic trajectory of the Jimmy Carter administration.  There are, of course, some parallels: both presidents broke onto the national scene as fresh-faced outsiders, dropping from the sky during unique moments in American politics in which the electorate desperately craved inexperience.  Both presidents articulated a dreamy utopian foreign policy—d

In My Wildest Dreams: The Marriage That Dare Not Speak Its Name

by Marc Stein

Living in Maine for much of the successful recent campaign to overturn the state’s legalization of same-sex marriage, I grew increasingly confu

A Plea for the Employee Free Choice Act

by Harvey Schwartz

The year 1984 marked the fiftieth anniversary of organized labor's victory in the great 1934 West Coast maritime and San Francisco general strikes. On that occasion, Harry Bridges, hero of the strike and founder and legendary leader of the Pacific

Obama, MLK and that Nobel Peace Prize

by LeeAnna Keith

President Obama shared a line of black American idiom in his Nobel Prize Speech for 2009. “I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘isene

The Moderometer: Charting Obama’s Zig-Zag, October 13 to December 1

by Gil Troy with Theodoric Meyer

 This is part of an ongoing project to track the ideological shifts of t

Who Lewis Henry Morgan Was and Why We Should Care

by Daniel Noah Moses

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Obama and the Democrats Need to Confront the Deficit Monster

by Iwan Morgan

Related Links Iwan Morgan: Seeing Red: The Budget Deficit - Past, Present and Future Iwan Morgan: Rosy Scenarios and Red Realities: Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and the Deficit

Why Homicide Declined in American Cities during the First Six Months of 2009

by Randolph Roth

            The Washington Post reported in late July that the crime rate fell sharply in most American cities during the first six months of 2009. Rates were

After Maine: Can Houston Provide a Much-Needed Victory for the Gay Rights Movement?

by Blake A. Ellis

“Our founding fathers did not intend for people’s constitutional rights to be determined in a political campaign.” That’s how gay activist Chad Griffin responded to news that Maine voters had overturned the state’s gay marriage law in November. As Griffin noted, more than 70 percent of Americans disapproved of interracial marriages when Loving vs. Virginia ruled that states must allow them in 1967. Although support for gay marriage has increased significant