Roundup: Historians' Take

Gary Leupp: The McChrystal Affair: A Boon for Obama?

[Gary Leupp is a Professor of History, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion at Tufts University, and author of numerous works on Japanese history.] In the now famous Rolling Stone interview by Michael Hastings, Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his staff disparage a number of top officials, including President Obama, Vice President Biden, Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, and Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry. Among the comments made

Martin Kramer: Amazingly, Ayatollah Fadlallah Dies of Natural Causes

[Martin Kramer is now a senior fellow at the Adelson Institution of Strategic studies and a Senior Fellow at the Olin Institute at Harvard.] Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah has passed away in Beirut at the age of 74. He had been in poor health for some years, suffering from diabetes and heart problems. Fadlallah became famous (and, to his enemies, notorious) in the 1980s, for his role in channeling the message of Hezbollah to thinking young Shi'ites and to the world. He p

Juan Cole: On Fourth of July, Let Iraq Go

[Mr. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. His website is http://www.juancole.com.] The Fourth of July celebrates the Declaration of Independence of the American colonies of Great Britain, on the grounds that they deserved representative government and popular sovereignty– something denied to them by the British crown. Iraq was occupied by American troops in 2003 after an illegal invasion, and it is still so occupied.

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: Fear of China is Overblown

[Jeffrey Wasserstrom teaches at University of California, Irvine, and is the author of"China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know."]"When the Chinese become our overlords, will they be benevolent overlords – or horrific task masters?" The Daily Show host Jon Stewart made that joke three years ago, but American anxiety over China's rise is more intense today.

Julian Zelizer: Gotcha Politics Gone Wild

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security -- From World War II to the War on Terrorism," a book on the presidency of George W. Bush and a book on former President Carter, to be published next fall by Times Books.] While nostalgia is always a dangerous thing, during the dominance of major newspapers and network news in the 1950s and 1960s, there was a

Eva Balogh: How European Politicians Get American History Wrong

[Eva Balogh is former professor of history at Yale University.] It was on July 1 that the United States Embassy celebrated Independence Day. Such events are very important in the life of the American colony abroad. The diplomatic corps and the most important government officials of the host country are invited. According to the American ambassador Eleni Tsakopulos Kounalakis, "it was a special privilege ... to welcome Prime Minister Orbán as our guest of honor."

Khalil Gibran Muhammad: Violence, Gun Rights, and Compassionate Progressivism

[Khalil Gibran Muhammad, an assistant professor of history at Indiana University, is the author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America (Harvard).]Children are dying in Chicago. The young and old are afraid to walk the streets of some neighborhoods. Gangs and drugs have overtaken many blocks. Armed young men shoot at police officers and innocent bystanders alike. Mothers and ministers are organizing antiviolence campaigns. Social work

Stanley Kutler: It's Still All About Race

[Stanley Kutler is the editor of The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War (Scribner's, 1995) and the The Wars of Watergate (Alfred A. Knopf). He is the E. Gordon Fox Emeritus Professor of American Institutions at the University of Wisconsin, and also professor of law.] Elena Kagan's confirmation is likely if no other reason than the emptiness of the Republican case against her. Her hearing had, in her own well-chosen words, "an air of vacuity and farce." Nevertheless, the Republic

Rodolfo Acuña: The Death of the Fourth Estate

[The author is professor emeritus at California State University, Northridge.] The press, in theory, is supposed to safeguard democratic principles. During a parliamentary debate in 1787, Edmund Burke supposedly referred to the press corps reporting the activities of the House of Commons as the Fourth Estate. Hypothetically, the press was the champion of the public. According to its supporters, the Fourth Estate acted as a mediator between the public and the elite. Jour

Roberto Cintli Rodriguez: From Manifest Destiny to Manifest Insanity

[Dr. Roberto Cintli Rodriguez, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com.] As a result of several recent draconian laws, Arizona's image has taken a drubbing internationally. And yet, Arizona is but the spear. In reality, its politics are not dramatically different from those of other states, or from Washington's. More than a dozen states are waiting in the wings with copycat legislation, and the

Akbar Ahmed: Thomas Jefferson and Mohammed Ali Jinnah: Dreams from Two Founding Fathers

[Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun chair of Islamic studies at American University's School of International Service. This essay is adapted from his new book, "Journey Into America: The Challenge of Islam."] "You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship. . . . We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one

Adrian Tinniswood: America’s Revolution: The Prequel

[Adrian Tinniswood, the author of “The Verneys: A True Story of Love, War and Madness in 17th-Century England,” is working on a book about the Rainborowe family.] PICTURE the scene: Out of the dawn mist, a fleet of longboats glides across the water, packed full of musket-wielding patriots and weather-beaten Massachusetts militiamen.... ...This daring amphibious assault by Col. Thomas Rainborowe and his regiment of New Englanders took place 3,000 miles away, in old Engla

Patrick Allitt: How to Succeed in Politics

[Patrick Allitt is the Cahoon Family Professor of American History at Emory University and author of The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History (Yale University Press, 2009).] IN 1773, Sam Adams led the Boston Sons of Liberty, thinly disguised as Mohawk Indians, onto three British freighters, seized their cargo of imported Indian tea and threw it into the harbor. They were afraid that the tea, unexpectedly cheap because it had been exempted from the usual

John Ferling: George Washington -- the Teflon Founding Father?

[John Ferling is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of West Georgia. His books include Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War for Independence and Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800.] With Independence Day approaching--and this week, a Supreme Court nominee undergoing confirmation hearings--Americans again find themselves talking about the Founding Fathers, their wisdom, and perhaps their flaws. As a historian of the American Revolution, I h

Alan M. Kraut: Is Obama the New Lincoln?

[Alan M. Kraut is Professor of History and an affiliate faculty member in the School of International Service. He is a Non-resident Fellow of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.] When President Barack Obama needs strength, he invokes a Republican, Abraham Lincoln. At his inauguration, Obama took the oath on the same Bible that Lincoln used and embraced the Lincoln legacy throughout the event. The sixteenth president's life and wisdom contains a rich cache of advice fo

Stanley Kutler: What Kind of Supreme Court?

[Stanley Kutler is the author of “Judicial Power and Reconstruction” and other writings.] The follies that are the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Supreme Court nominations returned with Solicitor General Elena Kagan in the hot seat, but with a new twist. Kagan had famously written that the lack of “meaningful discussion of legal issues” has given the confirmation process “an air of vacuity and farce,” resulting in a failure to properly evaluate nominees or educate the public

Mary L. Dudziak: Thurgood Marshall Got Kagan Treatment, Too

[Mary L. Dudziak is the Judge Edward J. and Ruey L. Guirado Professor of Law, History and Political Science at the University of Southern California. Her most recent book is "Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey" (Oxford University Press, 2008). She is writing a book about law and war in 20th-century U.S. history.] Republican senators this week pressed Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan on the degree to which her views mirror those of her mentor Ju

Van Gosse: Thank You, Rand Paul (From a Historian)

[Van Gosse is a historian and author specializing in American political development, the African-American struggle for citizenship and American society in the Cold War era and since.] Rand Paul is a gift to historians. As a candidate he embodies some of the longest-lasting, most picturesque -- and most reactionary and dangerous -- elements of the American political tradition: contempt for government; veneration of personal property over all else; freedom defined as the absence of re

Peter Rachleff: You Can't Care for Patients with Bayonets: Lessons from History

[Peter Rachleff is Professor of History at Macalester College. See, also, Peter Rachleff, "Minnesota Nurses Association Provides Rx for Union Revival" (MRZine, 14 June 2010).] As the contract impasse between the Twin Cities Hospitals (TCH) and the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) has heated up, journalists, commentators, and interested bystanders have looked increasingly to history for insights and lessons. The participation of more than 12,000 nurses in the one-day s

Victor Davis Hanson: (Even a Few) Words Matter

[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.] Why, after a horrendous war with Iran, would Saddam Hussein have risked another one with Kuwait? Perhaps because he believed that the United States would not stop him. That was a logical inference when American ambassador April Glaspie told him, “We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts,