Roundup: Historians' Take

Fouad Ajami: Islam's Encounters With America

[Mr. Ajami is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.] From his recent travels to the Persian Gulf—sponsored and paid for by the State Department—Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf returned with a none-too-subtle threat. His project, the Ground Zero Mosque, would have to go on. Its cancellation would risk putting "our soldiers, our troops, our embassies and citizens under attack in the Muslim world."

Mark LeVine: Obama Edges to the Dark Side

Possibly the most dramatic mea culpa in Presidential history, Bill Clinton, newly appointed as UN Special Envoy for Haiti, admitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the US policy of compelling poor developing countries to buy US agricultural products at subsidised prices, which destroyed local agricultural sectors, was a disaster. “I did that. I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, becau

Bruce Ackerman: The Radical Presidency

[Bruce Ackerman is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University and author, most recently, of The Decline and Fall of the American Republic.] After America's century-long rise to world hegemony, the presidency is a vastly different institution than it was in the days of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. The next few decades will be equally transformative, but in ways that will cause great difficulty for the sober formulation of U.S. foreign policy.

Michael B. Oren: Why Israelis Care About Peace

[Michael B. Oren is Israel's ambassador to the United States and a trained historian.] Imagine that you're a parent who sends her children off to school in the morning worrying whether their bus will become a target of suicide bombers.... Picture...that and you'll begin to understand what it is to be an Israeli. And you'll know why all Israelis desperately want peace. Recent media reports, in Time magazine and elsewhere, have alleged that Israelis — who are currently ex

Albert L. Weeks: Communist Reform: Could It Happen in North Korea?

[Albert L. Weeks is a professor emeritus of New York University and the author of several books on Soviet politics.] When a Communist dictator dies, moderation follows. It's a virtual axiom of political science, supported by much of 20th-century history. But could reform follow the rule of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il? The answer will shape both the nuclear ambitions of a rogue state and the outcome of one of Asia's longest-running conflicts, on the Korean Peninsula.

Victor Davis Hanson: Rethinking George Bush?

[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.] Former president George W. Bush left office with the lowest approval ratings since Richard Nixon. So, for nearly two years, Pres. Barack Obama won easy applause by prefacing almost every speech on his economic policies with a “Bush did it” p

Victor Davis Hanson: Obama’s Washington Animal Farm

[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.] Since the moment he announced his presidential candidacy, Barack Obama has waged a tireless, now four-year-long spread-the-wealth campaign against the more affluent. He drew his mythical them/us line at $250,000 in annual income

William Astore: Major Sporting Events: Too Corporatized, Too Controlling, Too Much

[William Astore teaches History at the Pennsylvania College of Technology. He retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in 2005, having taught at the Air Force Academy as well as the Naval Postgraduate School. He writes regularly for TomDispatch.com and History News Network.] Been to a major American sporting event lately? If not, consider yourself fortunate. The NFL and NASCAR are already over-the-top when it comes to manufactured noise, exaggerated pyrotechnics, and wall-

Lawrence Davidson: Does International Law Have a Future?

[Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.] Back on 23 August 2010 Israel’s most prestigious human rights organization, B’Tselem released a short report on the condition of water supplies in the Gaza Strip. Referencing the United Nations Environment Programme as well as the Palestine Water Autho

Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse: The American Way of War Quiz

[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. 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.]Yes, it would be funny if it were

Ronald J. Pestritto: Glenn Beck, Progressives and Me

[Mr. Pestritto is a professor of politics at Hillsdale College and the author of "Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005).] ...Mr. Beck and others—such as Jonah Goldberg in his 2008 book, "Liberal Fascism"—tie today's progressives (the new word for liberals) to the progressive movement at the turn of the 20th century. They contend that the original progressives—including leaders such as Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Rooseve

Joseph J. Thorndike: Americans Don't Mind Taxes -- They Hate Tax Loopholes

[Joseph J. Thorndike is the director of the Tax History Project at Tax Analysts in Falls Church and the author of "Their Fair Share: Why Americans Tax the Rich," forthcoming in 2011.] Americans hate taxes, right? We vote for candidates who promise to cut them and punish candidates who pledge to raise them. We tell pollsters we don't want to pay them. And we teach our children that the nation was founded to resist them. From the Boston Tea Party to Shays's Rebe

James Kwak: The Rich Took Over in the 1970s

[James Kwak holds a PhD in intellectual history from UC Berkeley.] It isn’t often that I read two books in a row that both cite Alexis de Tocqueville, probably my favorite Social Studies 10 author (although he was far from my favorite at the time). In Third World America, Arianna Huffington cited Tocqueville’s observation that democracy should promote the interests of “the greatest possible number”; as I pointed out, this is clearly no longer true in America (if it ever was). In Win

Steve Hochstadt: Whom Do You Trust?

[Steve Hochstadt of Jacksonville is a professor of history at Illinois College. His column appears every Tuesday in the Journal-Courier and is available and on his blog at stevehochstadt.blogspot.com.] Lately we have been hearing how awful government is. Not governments like Iran or North Korea, not Communists or military dictatorships, but our own government. I find this ironic, since I am now teaching a course about the 1960s, when people who criticized our government

Julian E. Zelizer: Bush Was Right -- We're Not at War with Islam

[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.] In the aftermath of 9/11, Americans were angry, fearful and scrambling for answers.... A few Americans turned their rage against Muslims who were living in

John Paul Rossi: Lessons of Gulf Oil Spill Apply to Marcellus Shale Drilling

[John Paul Rossi is an associate professor of history at Penn State Behrend. He writes on business and economic history and is co-author of "Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Automobile Insurance: Samuel P. Black, Jr. and the Rise of Erie Insurance, 1923-1961" (jpr2@psu.edu).] BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the recent explosion of the Mariner Energy rig offers Pennsylvanians several important lessons that are directly applicabl

Elwood Watson: The Season of Racial Discontent

[Dr. Elwood Watson is a full professor of history and African-American studies at East Tennessee State University. He is the author of several award-winning academic articles, several anthologies and is the author of the book “Outsiders Within: Black Women in the Legal Academy After Brown v. Board” (Rowman and Littlefield Publisher, Spring 2008).] For anyone who thought the election of Barack Obama ushered in an era of post-racial harmony, several events that have transpired over th

Julian E. Zelizer: Don't Judge the 111th Congress Yet

[Julian E. Zelizer is a history professor at Princeton University. He is the editor of an essay collection, “The Presidency of George W. Bush: A First Historical Assessment,” due out this fall, and the author of “Jimmy Carter.”] With all the political challenges Democrats face going into the midterms, one thing is clear: Despite talk of a broken branch of government, Congress has been enormously productive since President Barack Obama took office. The list of legislation that has pa

Andrew J. Bacevich: Hillary Clinton's 'American Moment' Was Nothing But American Blather

[Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. His new book is Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War.] It came. It went. It vanished without a trace. Last week America’s secretary of state appeared before what passes in Washington for a gathering of the great and good and announced that a “new American Moment” had arrived. Unfortunately for Hillary Clinton (and her hopelessly pedestrian speechwriters), the secre

Jonathan Zimmerman: Can Conflict Abroad Mean Progress Here?

[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author most recently of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press).] Hey, Americans, stop hating each other! Don't you know there's a war going on? That's essentially what the United States' top commander in Afghanistan said in a much-publicized interview, condemning a Florida pastor who has vowed to burn Qurans on Sept. 11.