Roundup: Historians' Take

James McWilliams: The Evils of Corn Syrup: How Food Writers Got It Wrong

[James McWilliams is an Associate Professor of history at Texas State University, San Marcos.] Last week the Corn Refiners Association—tired of being seen as enemy number one in the war on obesity—filed a petition with the FDA to change the name of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to "corn sugar." The drumbeat of mockery from food purists, as you might imagine, began in earnest. Mary Elizabeth Williams wondered in Salon.com, "Who'd have thought the day would come when

Victor Davis Hanson: Obama’s Glass House

[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.] Preachers and professors have it hard as presidents. They sermonize too much. Finally the public gets tired of being lectured by those whom they increasingly see as no more upright than themselves. Prophets crumble from feet of clay, and sto

Daniel Pipes: "Rushdie Rules" Reach Florida

[Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. His article,"Two Decades of the Rushdie Rules" will appear in the October issue of Commentary magazine.]Pastor Terry Jones' plan to burn copies of the Koran at his church in Gainesville, Florida, let it be emphasized, is a distasteful act that fits an

Bruce Ackerman: Obama, Warren and The Imperial Presidency

[Mr. Ackerman is a professor at Yale and the author of "The Decline and Fall of the American Republic," forthcoming from Harvard University Press.] President Obama's appointment of Elizabeth Warren late last week is another milestone down the path toward an imperial presidency. During America's first 150 years, Ms. Warren's appointment as a special adviser to the White House would have been unthinkable. Today, it's par for the course. Only in 1939 did Frankli

Garry Wills: Stealing Newman

[Garry Wills is Professor of History Emeritus at Northwestern. His latest book, Outside Looking In: Adventures of an Observer, will be published in October 2010.] Pope Benedict XVI is the best-dressed liar in the world. And in England he presided over the best set-designed lie imaginable. He beatified the nineteenth-century Oxford theologian John Henry Newman, presenting him (in the penultimate step toward canonization) as a docile believer in papal authority, an enemy of dissent, a

Timothy Snyder: Who's Afraid of Ukrainian History?

[Timothy Snyder is Professor of History at Yale. His new book, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, will be published this month.
 (October 2010).] On summer evenings, the people of the west Ukrainian city Lviv come to sing: under the statue of Taras Shevchenko, the great poet who prophesied Ukrainian independence in the nineteenth century, on the street that was renamed Liberty Boulevard when Ukraine emerged from Soviet rule in 1991. The songs tell of beautiful d

Kevin O’Rourke: Lessons from the Great Depression

[Kevin O’Rourke is a Professor of Economics at Trinity College Dublin, and a co-organiser of the CEPR’s Economic History Initiative.] On August 9, 1941, the Prince of Wales sailed into Placentia Bay on the coast of Newfoundland, after a risky journey from Scapa Flow. It was bringing Winston Churchill to a meeting with Franklin D. Roosevelt, which culminated in the agreement of the Atlantic Charter.... [The fifth point of the charter] stated that the two leaders desired "to brin

Steve Hochstadt: Fixing the World Not Our Responsibility

[Steve Hochstadt of Jacksonville is a professor of history at Illinois College. His column appears every Tuesday.] When Franklin Roosevelt prepared to fight Japan in the Pacific, he had to wait until we were attacked first. There was just too strong a sentiment of isolationism in the U.S., powerful reservations about using American power to intervene in the politics and wars of other countries. That all changed after World War II. We emerged from the war with the convic

Gary Leupp: The “Right Thing” in Iraq?

[Gary Leupp is a Professor of History, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion at Tufts University, and author of numerous works on Japanese history. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu.] Fox News recently reported that 58% of U.S. residents believe that the U.S. “did the right thing” in going to war in Iraq. This reflects the fact that most have been persuaded that combat is over, the troops having succeeding in toppli

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: Friedman's Flawed Beijing Bulletin

[Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, the Editor of the Journal of Asian Studies, and the author, most recently, of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know (published in April by Oxford University Press).]There are some superb foreign journalists based in China these days, including more than a few working for American news outlets, ranging from NPR to various newspapers and magazines. They know the country well and

Tom Engelhardt: One and a Half Cheers for American Decline

[Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com.  His latest book, The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books), has just been published.]Compare two assessments of the American futur

Todd Gitlin: This Manichaean Moment

[Todd Gitlin’s latest book (with Liel Leibovitz), The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel, and the Ordeals of Divine Election has just been published by Simon & Schuster.] America inclines to wars of the rhetorical absolute. Adversaries readily turn into menaces; menaces into irresistible blobs and imminent devastations. Fights burst into wars and wars are declared holy. As the nation strives to protect itself from actually existing enemies, the Manichaean strain in American life pa

Daniel Pipes: The Rushdie Rules Reach Florida

[Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.] Pastor Terry Jones’s plan to burn copies of the Koran at his church in Gainesville, Fla., let it be emphasized, is a distasteful act that fits an ugly tradition. That said, two other points need be noted. First, buying books and then burning them is an entirely legal act in the United States. Second, David Petraeus, Robert Gates, Eric Holder,

Jonathan Tremblay: Vladimir Putin is No FDR

[Jonathan Tremblay is a historian and Breaking News Editor for the History News Network.]Last week, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin were reminiscing about their long careers at the head of their respective countries and, as a joke, referring to the medical conference they were organizing, joked that they would rule until the age of one hundred twenty.  That same week, Putin tentatively began campaigning for a third term as Russian

Kenneth C. Davis: America's True History of Religious Tolerance

[Kenneth C. Davis is the author of Don’t Know Much About History and A Nation Rising, among other books.] Wading into the controversy surrounding an Islamic center planned for a site near New York City’s Ground Zero memorial this past August, President Obama declared: “This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is es

Lawrence Davidson: Marty Peretz And The Dangers of Obsessive Love

[Lawrence Davidson is Professor of History at West Chester University, West Chester, Pa and author most recently of Foreign Policy, Inc.: Privatizing America’s National Interest (2009).] Martin Peretz is editor-in-chief of The New Republic. He acquired that position by simply buying the magazine in 1974. Although he resold it to a group of investors in 2002, they were, and apparently remain, his ideological soul mates for he continues to this day to be the magazine’s executive edit

Rick Horowitz: No, Really -- Dems Should Party Like It's 1972

[Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist, TV commentator, public speaker and writing coach. He's a winner of two National Headliner Awards for his column, which appears on opinion pages across the country. He's also won two Emmys for his imaginative weekly commentaries on Milwaukee Public Television’s “InterCHANGE.”] Hold on to your hats -- here's where I compare Barack Obama to Richard Nixon. Perhaps I should explain. When it comes to politics and presidents, everyone'

Julian E. Zelizer: Tea Party Promises Won't Last

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Arsenal of Democracy" and a book on former President Carter and editor of a book assessing former President George W. Bush's administration, to be published this fall by Princeton University Press.] Christine O'Donnell shocked the political establishment last week with her victory in the Republican Senate primary in Delaware against Rep. Mike Castle. Like most Tea

Louis A. Perez Jr.: Want Change in Cuba? End U.S. Embargo

[Louis A. Perez Jr. is the J. Carlyle Sitterson professor of history and the director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.] In April 2009, the White House released a presidential memorandum declaring that democracy and human rights in Cuba were "national interests of the United States." Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela repeated the message in May of this year to the Cuban-American Nati

Michael Klarman: The Political Risks of Supporting Gay Rights

[Michael Klarman is a professor at Harvard Law School and the author of "From Jim Crow to Civil Rights," which won the 2005 Bancroft Prize.] It is difficult to ask historically disadvantaged minority groups to be patient in waiting for full recognition of their constitutional rights. Thurgood Marshall, the great NAACP organizer and litigator, was asked after Brown vs. Board of Education whether, in light of threatened violence and school closures in the South, he would hav