Roundup: Historians' Take

Allen C. Guelzo: Climate of Hate

[Allen C. Guelzo is Henry R. Luce III professor of the Civil War era, director of Civil War Era Studies, and associate director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College.] Once the shock of the Giffords assassination attempt had worn off, the next-most-amazing thing we beheld was the unembarrassed gloating with which the American Left, in its many forms, pointed a pompous and hysterical finger at “the Tea Party” or “the Right” or “talk-show hosts” (although the accusers clear

Joanne B. Freeman: When Congress Was Armed And Dangerous

[Joanne B. Freeman, a professor of history at Yale, is at work on a book about violence in Congress.] THE announcement that Representatives Heath Shuler of North Carolina and Jason Chaffetz of Utah are planning to wear guns in their home districts has surprised many, but in fact the United States has had armed congressmen before. In the rough-and-tumble Congress of the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s, politicians regularly wore weapons on the House and Senate floors, and sometimes used them.

Kathryn Olmsted: A Very American Conspiracy Theory

[Kathryn Olmsted is a professor of history at the University of California, Davis, and the author of Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11.] Whether or not Jared Loughner is mentally ill, it's clear that his shooting rampage last weekend, which took six lives and critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was motivated, at least in part, by his conspiratorial views of the U.S. government. According to his friends, he believed that Washington

Jon Wiener: Professors with Guns: The Arizona Plan

[Jon Wiener teaches US history at UC Irvine. His most recent book is Historians in Trouble.] The Arizona legislature is considering a proposal to authorize the carrying of weapons on campus by faculty members. The idea is simple -- in case of trouble in the classroom, somebody needs to be able to blast away at problem students. But the question arises, should all faculty members be armed? Adjuncts, for example --part-timers, "freeway fliers," paid by the cour

Julian E. Zelizer: Extremism is a Vice, Not a Virtue

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter," published by Times Books, and editor of a book assessing former President George W. Bush's administration, published by Princeton University Press.] Princeton, New Jersey (CNN) -- The mass shooting in Arizona has raised a political challenge for the Republican Party. Party leaders have spent the last few days rebutting charges from liberals that extr

Victor Davis Hanson: Political Vultures

[Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.] Very few Americans are fans of both The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kamp, as the Tucson killer, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, apparently was. Fewer still post on the Internet fears about “brain washing,” “mind control,” and “conscience dreaming”; have a long record of public disruption and

David Greenberg: Did Anti-Semitism Factor Into the Shooting of Congresswoman Giffords?

[Contributing Editor David Greenberg is a professor of history and of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for the 2010-11 academic year.] The papers have mentioned it mainly in passing. Had this happened a decade ago, I would not have fixed on this detail. But Gabrielle Giffords is Jewish. And her alleged assassin, Jared Lee Loughner, is reported to have admired Mein Kampf and claimed ties to the ant

Gil Troy: Internal Rivals Could be Barack Obama’s Downfall

[Gil Troy is professor of history at McGill University and the author of, among others, Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents, and The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction.] While much of the discussion since U.S. President Barack Obama’s “shellacking” in the 2010 congressional midterm elections has focused on the Republican surge, Obama also should worry about his base. In the last 50 years, the only incumbent presidents who have lost their re-elec

Jonathan Zimmerman: No Excusing Teacher-Pupil Affairs

[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press).] About a quarter-century ago, when I was a rookie high school teacher, I was helping a student in the faculty office when a colleague bounded in to grab some coffee on his way to class. "Are you teaching this young lady some history, Mr. Zimmerman?" he asked, re

Katherine Benton-Cohen: Even Tombstone Had Gun Laws

[Katherine Benton-Cohen, an Arizona native and history professor at Georgetown University, is the author of “Borderline Americans: Racial Division and Labor War in the Arizona Borderlands.”] Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, during a press conference about the Tucson shootings, called Arizona “the Tombstone of the United States.” Some journalists gave the word a lowercase “t,” but the sheriff was clearly referring to the infamous silver-mining town 70 miles from Tucs

Allen C. Guelzo: What the Civil War Can Teach Us About Political Restraint

[Allen C. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College, and the author of "Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President."] One hundred and fifty years ago, American passions over politics blew off the lids we usually keep in place on our political debates and turned a war of words into a war of arms. By its end, the US Civil War had taken the lives of 620,000 Americans – the population equivalent of 6 million today. And despite the emancipation o

Jonathan Zimmerman: Arizona Shooting: Don't Blame Sarah Palin -- Get Public Schools to Discuss Politics

[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author of “Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory.”] It’s the Republicans’ fault! Listen to their nasty anti-government rhetoric! That’s been the party line among many of my fellow Democrats, ever since Jared Loughner allegedly shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others outside an Arizona shopping mall Saturday morning. They’re wrong.

Glenn W. LaFantasie: Our Permanent Culture of Political Violence

[Glenn W. LaFantasie is the Richard Frockt Family Professor of Civil War History and Director of the Institute for Civil War Studies at Western Kentucky University. His most recent book is "Gettysburg Heroes: Perfect Soldiers, Hallowed Ground" (Indiana University Press, 2008).] In the wake of Jared L. Loughner’s attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords -- part of a shooting rampage that has claimed six lives -- Americans are going through much hand-wringing and s

Simon Schama: An America Lost in Fantasy Must Recover Its Dream

[The writer is an FT contributing editor.] As it says goodbye and good riddance to 2010, is America also saying so long to depression, both the economic and the psychic varieties? Is double-dip now just another way to get your hot fudge sundae? Riding the Metro North commuter train from Pleasantville to Grand Central Station on the last weekend before Christmas, you’d certainly suppose so. The consumer confidence index had been rising for two straight months now and most of it seeme

Victor Davis Hanson: The New Sophists

[Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.] In classical Athens, public life became dominated by clever and smart-sounding sophists. These mellifluous “really wise guys” made money and gained influence by their rhetorical boasts of having “proved” the most amazing “thinkery” that belied common sense. We are living in a new

Gil Troy: It Was Good to See the Last of 2010

[Gil Troy teaches history at McGill University.] Good riddance to 2010 - not only because the calendar gods decree it, but because so many of us were so fed up with it. Fortunately no historic cataclysm occurred that will jump off the page of future textbooks. Instead, it was a year of slogging through, of feeling drained. It featured major leaks, notably the British Petroleum oil leak and the diplomatic tsunami of WikiLeaks. During 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama's s

Max Boot: Covert Action Makes a Comeback

[Mr. Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is completing a history of guerrilla warfare and terrorism.] We're in an era of "covert action." That phrase went into disrepute in the 1970s, when Congress's Church Committee exposed hare-brained CIA plots to eliminate foreign leaders, such as assassinating Fidel Castro with exploding cigars. President Ford banned assassinations, a chastened CIA cast many veteran officers into the cold, and

Daniel Martin Varisco: Ibn Big Ben

[Daniel Martin Varisco is professor of anthropology at Hofstra University]Without a doubt the most sacred site in the history of Islam is the precinct at Mecca around the black stone known as the Ka’aba. Images of the holy site have adorned Islamic manuscripts for centuries, as millions of pilgrims have made the trip to see the holy city over the years, some taking months to reach their goal. In this last pilgrimage it is estimated that some three million Muslims partook in the an

Martin Kramer: George Kennan, Iran Hawk

[Martin Kramer is the president-designate of Shalem College in Jerusalem (in formation) and the Wexler-Fromer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.]Kennan died in 2005 at the age of 101, and just what he would say about Iran today is anybody’s guess. But if the exercise is valid at all, perhaps it is only fair to ask what Kennan did say about Iran. During two crises, in 1952 and 1980, he made policy recommendations—in 1952, to the State Department in pri

Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg: What Michele Bachmann Doesn't Know About History

[Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg are Professors of History at Louisiana State University and co-authors of "Madison and Jefferson" (Random House, 2010). Isenberg is also the author of "Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr" (2007).] At a rally last week, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann playfully confessed to having campaigned for Jimmy Carter in 1976. Waiting for the laughter to subside, she went on to say that it was as a junior (elsewhere she has said seni