Roundup: Historians' Take

Geoffrey R. Stone: A Clear Danger to Free Speech

[Geoffrey R. Stone is a professor of law at the University of Chicago and the chairman of the board of the American Constitution Society.] THE so-called Shield bill, which was recently introduced in both houses of Congress in response to the WikiLeaks disclosures, would amend the Espionage Act of 1917 to make it a crime for any person knowingly and willfully to disseminate, “in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States,” any classified information “concer

Juan Cole: Top Ten Middle East Challenges for U.S. Policy, 2011

[Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, maintains the blog Informed Comment. His most recent book, just out in paperback, is “Engaging the Muslim World.”] ...1. Egypt, after decades of being unproblematic for the US, may be on the verge of being a foreign policy challenge of some magnitude. President Hosni Mubarak is advanced in age and could pass from the scene soon. He is grooming his son, Jamal, to be his successor, but

Victor Davis Hanson: The Manhattan Project Of Illegal Immigration

[NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.] We all are familiar with the debates surrounding illegal immigration: absolute versus flexible laws; amnesty versus deportation or earned citizenship; closed versus open borders; entitlement dependency versus work no one else will do.

Steven Conn: Singing the Team-Spirit Blues

[Steven Conn is a professor of history at Ohio State University.] The message came down from central administration, and it was ominous: Meetings would be canceled for the afternoon. Staff were to go home at 2 p.m. Buildings would be shut and locked down. The campus was going into high alert. Welcome to the start of this year's football season at the Division I powerhouse where I work. That the university deployed "shooter on campus" protocols mad

Julian E. Zelizer: Senate Should Let Majority Rule

[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.] Suddenly no one is talking about Congress as the "broken branch" of government any more. Conservatives are complaining that the 111th Congress did too much, while liberals are boas

Moshe Dann: The Two Essential Questions Regarding Palestinian Statehood

[The author, a former assistant professor of history, is a writer and journalist living in Jerusalem.] When the PLO was founded in 1964, “liberation” included all of Israel. In 1974, the UN granted the PLO non-state diplomatic status; its mission was, and is, to “liberate Palestine.” All of it. That goal has not changed. In 1988, when the Palestine National Council on behalf of the PLO — “the sole representative of the Palestinian people” — declared a state of Palestine

Victor Davis Hanson: The American 21st Century

[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.] The current debt, recession, wars, and political infighting have depressed Americans into thinking their country soon will be overtaken by more vigorous rivals abroad. Yet this is an American fear as old as it is improbable. In the 1930s, the Great Depression supposedly marked the

Bruce J. Schulman: Take a Bow, Nancy and Harry

[Bruce J. Schulman, the William E. Huntington Professor of History at Boston University, is the author of "The Seventies" (DaCapo Press).] With dozens of defeated and retiring members clearing out their offices, the 111th Congress finished work this week. Few are sad to see it go. According to a recent Gallup poll, only thirteen percent of Americans approve of the way Congress is doing its job; fully 83% disapprove, the most intense scorn for the national legislature in th

Jonathan Zimmerman: Is Your Computer Making You Stupid?

[Jonathan Zimmerman is a professor of education and history at New York University. He wrote a longer version of this for the Merionite, the school newspaper at Lower Merion High, where his two daughters are students.] Dear high school student: Can we talk? It's about computers....And I've got some bad news for you: They make you dumber. There, I said it. And so have numerous researchers from a wide array of fields. It's time to take them seriously....

Victor Davis Hanson: Every Man a King

[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.] As the year in politics closed, Congress and President Obama were arguing over maintaining the Bush-era income-tax rates. Conservatives insisted that the top 5 percent of households already accounted for nearly 60 percent of the aggregate tax revenue and that it was suicidal to hike taxes on t

Julian E. Zelizer: The Best Thing That Ever Happened to the Right

[Julian E. Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton University, is the author of "Jimmy Carter," "Arsenal of Democracy," and the editor of "The Presidency of George W. Bush."] When President Obama started his term in the White House in January 2009, many experts wondered whether conservatism would survive. Following almost three decades of conservative politics in the United States, the movement confronted a serious political crisis. With the collapse

Bernard Frischer: Museums Should Dig In

[Bernard Frischer, a professor of archaeology and classics, is the director of the Virtual World Heritage Laboratory at the University of Virginia.] THIS year saw the end of the five-year-long trial here of Marion True, a former antiquities curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The case against her — for the purchase of art allegedly looted from Italy — petered out inconclusively when the Italian statute of limitations expired. The Getty is hardly the only

James Renton: WikiLeaks ... Imperial Precedent

[James Renton is Senior Lecturer in History at Edge Hill University and the author of The Zionist Masquerade: The Birth of the Anglo-Zionist Alliance, 1914-1918.] In December 1917 British imperial troops occupied Jerusalem, ending four centuries of Ottoman rule. Earlier that year, the British Empire also took control of Baghdad, and was advancing across the middle east. In Asia and the West, the British government spread the message that they were bringing a new age of national free

Timothy Garton Ash: Belarus' Lukashenko Is Europe's Mugabe

[Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist. His personal website is www.timothygartonash.com.] Happy Christmas? Not for Belarus. Grandfather Frost, the Russosphere version of Santa Claus, came early to Minsk this year, and the presents he brought were election fraud, police beatings, mass arrests, Soviet-style lies and, for the European Union, a special Christmas card saying "screw you".

Victor Davis Hanson: The Obamaites’ About-Face

[NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.] Californians have been experiencing ten days of the wettest, snowiest weather in recent memory. In the usually arid San Joaquin Valley, flooding is ubiquitous. The high Sierra passes are locked in snow well before the first of the year. If t

Ian Morris: The Next 40 Years Will Be the Most Important in Human History

[Ian Morris, professor of classics and history at Stanford University, is the author of the just-published “Why the West Rules – For Now: The Patterns of History, and What they Reveal About the Future.”] The West is on top of the world. Only about one-seventh of the planet’s population lives in Europe or North America, but they generate two-thirds of its wealth, own two-thirds of its weapons, and spend more than two-thirds of its R&D dollars. On average, American workers are sev

Pauline Maier: Justice Breyer’s Sharp Aim

[Pauline Maier is a history professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of “Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788.”] WHILE the federal judge who ruled that portions of the health care reform law were unconstitutional made the big headlines, another important constitutional debate was reopened last week by Justice Stephen Breyer during an interview on Fox. He argued that the historical record — in particular, James Madison’s thoughts an

Victor Davis Hanson: The Obamaites' About-Face

[NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.] Californians have been experiencing ten days of the wettest, snowiest weather in recent memory. In the usually arid San Joaquin Valley, flooding is ubiquitous. The high Sierra passes are locked in snow well before the first of the year. If t

Michael Lind: Does Anyone in America Believe In the Rule of Law?

[Michael Lind is Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation.] Different ideas about the rule of law in the United States and a certain nation in Latin America were explained to me once by a distinguished professor of law from that country. "In your country, the Constitution and the laws are considered to be binding," he told me with an ironic smile. "In my country, they are considered to be ... aspirations." Further

Michael Kazin: The Silence of Godly Liberals

[Michael Kazin is co-editor of Dissent and a professor of history at Georgetown University]It would be a fine thing if Democrats took the advice of TNR’s Tiffany Stanley and spent more energy trying to win religious voters away from the GOP. But she misunderstands why their recent efforts to do so have mostly failed. One of the glories of religion in the United States is that, since the earl