Roundup: Historians' Take

Andrew J. Bacevich: Obama Should Assess the Afghanistan Surge Before Firing McChrystal

[Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. His new book is "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War."] Has Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the American four-star commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, committed a firing offense? A forthcoming article in Rolling Stone - its accuracy to this point unchallenged - quotes McChrystal and members of his staff expressing disdain, if not utter contempt, for civilian officials ranging fr

Jim Sleeper: Conservatives See McChrystal's Folly; Neo-Cons Can't

[Jim Sleeper is a lecturer in political science at Yale University.]My father learned about Gen. Stanley McChrystal's kind of contempt for the suits in Washington on the night of April 12, 1945, when he awakened his commanding officer with news that Franklin D. Roosevelt was dead. As the bulletin reached HQ at the 277th Battalion of the U.S. Army Combat Engineers in Holsterhausen, Germany, the war was still very much on; the Wehrmacht had recently tried to shell a bridge the comba

David Kynaston: Austerity was a Hard Sell in the 40s -- Today It's Harder Still

[David Kynaston is the author of Austerity Britain, 1945–1951.] Like Charles Ryder at Brideshead or Bob Dylan on Highway 61, we've been here before. "No sooner did we awake from the six years nightmare of war and feel free to enjoy life once more than the means to do so immediately became even scantier than they had been during the war," lamented Anthony Heap, a local government official living in St Pancras, in his diary at the end of 1945. "Housing, food, clothing,

Juan Cole: Obama's MacArthur Moment

[Mr. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. His website is http://www.juancole.com.] Gen. Stanley McChrystal is apologizing for remarks he made in a Rolling Stone interview denigrating Vice President Joe Biden and US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry.McChrystal is said to have asked “Who’s that?” at the me

Jonathan Zimmerman: Obama, Cool in a Crisis

[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author most recently of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory."] In 1965, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. published his now-classic tribute to John F. Kennedy. "A Thousand Days" recounted the triumphs and tragedies of Kennedy's brief presidency, but the book was primarily an exploration of his character, which Schlesinger summed up with a single word:

Scott Horton and Baktybek Abdrisaev: U.S. and Russia Can End the Suffering in Kyrgyzstan

[Scott Horton is an attorney and a contributing editor at Harper's Magazine and is a founding trustee of the American University in Central Asia. Baktybek Abdrisaev was Kyrgyzstan's ambassador to the United States from 1997 to 2005 and is now a visiting professor of history and political science at Utah Valley University.] The United States operates an air base in Kyrgyzstan. The keystone of the Pentagon's Northern Distribution Network, it keeps essential matériel moving into Afghan

Julian Zelizer: Is America Tuning Out Capitol Hill?

[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" and of a book on former President Carter, to be published next fall by Times Books.] At my local gym Thursday, one of the television sets showed the live CNN broadcast of Rep. Henry Waxman questioning BP CEO Tony Hayward about how so much could have gone wrong.

Matthew Dickinson: Why Obama Should Not Have Given Tuesday’s Speech

[Matthew Dickinson is a professor of political science at Middlebury College.] President Obama made his first prime-time Oval Office address last Tuesday, to decidedly mixed reviews. Some of his most usually stalwart defenders, like Keith Olbermann and Chris (“My Leg Isn’t Tingling”) Matthews this time were not impressed. For the most part, these critics wanted Obama to be more decisive and to convey a greater sense of command. Some also wished that he came down harder on BP.

John P. Rossi: The World's Most Dangerous Summer

[John P. Rossi is a professor emeritus of history at La Salle University. He can be reached at rossi@lasalle.edu.] Seventy years ago this summer, the Western democracies faced what may have been the most dangerous moment in their histories. We tend to be fascinated by turning points - those decisive moments when the fate of nations is at stake. June through September of 1940 was just such a moment. In a matter of six weeks, Adolf

Ted Widmer: On Writing Speeches for Presidents

[Ted Widmer has a PhD in American history and is a former speechwriter for Bill Clinton.] In 1948, James R. Masterson and Wendell Brooks Phillips published a satire of Washington writing called "Federal Prose." The verdict, as you might imagine, was not positive. Here is how they translated "too many cooks spoil the broth" into federalese: "Undue multiplicity of personnel assigned either concurrently or consecutively to a single function involves deteriorati

Elliot Hen-Tov and Bernard Haykel: Turkey’s Gain Is Iran’s Loss

[Elliot Hen-Tov is a doctoral candidate and Bernard Haykel a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton.] SINCE Israel’s deadly raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara last month, it’s been assumed that Iran would be the major beneficiary of the wave of global anti-Israeli sentiment. But things seem to be playing out much differently: Iran paradoxically stands to lose much influence as Turkey assumes a surprising new role as the modern, democratic and internationally respected nat

Daniel and Tony Judt: Generations in the Balance

[Daniel Judt is in the ninth grade at the Dalton School. Tony Judt is the author of “Ill Fares the Land” (and his father).] DANIEL Had I been 18 in November 2008, I would have voted for Barack Obama. However, being 14, I settled for voicing my support for him and expressing joy at his election. I believed, innocently, that his administration would put its foot down, stamping out the environmental crisis that his predecessors had allowed to fester unnoticed. I felt M

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: What the Foreign Media Misses in Covering China's Labor Unrest

[Jeffrey Wasserstrom is professor of history at the University of California-Irvine and author of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know.] Since mid May, Chinese factory workers from several Honda plants in southern China have gone on strike, calling for higher wages, better working conditions, and, according to some accounts, the right to form their own independent labor unions. The first work stoppage was a May 17 walkout by roughly 1,800 workers at a Honda parts p

Randal Jelks: A Tale of Two Oil Rich and Degraded Deltas

[Randal Maurice Jelks is Associate Professor of American Studies and African American Studies at the University of Kansas.] The Gulf Coasts of Louisiana is being damaged by oil just as the Nigerian Delta has been contaminated by oil for years. In the case of Nigeria, the culprit has been Shell Oil. For years, most people in the United States did not pay attention. The only thing known about Nigeria, the most populous country on the African cont

Paul A. Rahe: An Absence of Executive Temperament

[Paul A. Rahe holds The Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at Hillsdale College, where he is Professor of History and Politics.] In politics, temperament matters – it matters a great deal, as Barack Obama has unwittingly shown us time and again. Some women and men love to posture, talk, debate, and negotiate. Temperamentally, they are suited for a legislative role. It is said – only partly in jest– that, in Washington, DC, the most dan

Tariq Ali: Obama’s War

[Tariq Ali is a writer and filmmaker. He has written more than two dozen books on world history and politics, and seven novels (translated into over a dozen languages) as well as scripts for the stage and screen. He is an editor of New Left Review and lives in London.] Afghanistan now is at a critical stage. And now I’m very glad to say that the London Review of Books, whose thirtieth anniversary we are commemorating, has over the years published myself and others on this subject, t

Victor Davis Hanson: The Great Anglo-American Spat

[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.] Various irate British observers — from columnists like Peter Hitchens and Geoffrey Wheatcroft to parliamentarians and former cabinet officials — have recently declared the “special relationship” with America to be over. The Anglo animus, perhaps brought to a boil by the World Cup soccer match

Timothy Garton Ash: De Gaulle and Churchill Have a Message for Sarkozy and Cameron

[Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist.] In London tomorrow, Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron will join French and British veterans to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle's historic radio appeal to the French to go on fighting against Hitler. On the same day that De Gaulle broadcast his message from London on the BBC, 18 June 1940, Winston Churchill delivered his "finest hour" speech to the House of Commons, declaring t

Victor Davis Hanson: 'Bush Did It’ Is Not a Foreign Policy

[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.] Not being George W. Bush while apologizing for America’s purported sins is not a foreign policy.... After 9/11, George W. Bush sought to keep America safe from another round of Islamic terrorism while promoting Middle East constitutional government as a way of weakening Islamic te

Stephanie Coontz: Divorce, No-Fault Style

[Stephanie Coontz, a professor of history at Evergreen State College, is the author of “Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage” and the forthcoming history “A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s.”] FORTY years after the first true no-fault divorce law went into effect in California, New York appears to be on the verge of finally joining the other 49 states in allowing people to end a marriage without having to establish that