Roundup: Historians' Take

Ira Chernus: Obama's Conservative Call to War Against Oil

[Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of Monsters to Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin.] FDR showed the power of politics as theater when he created the fireside chat to promote the New Deal. And he often spoke of the New Deal as a war against the Great Depression. But his flair for the theatrical was perfected during World War II. "In human affairs, the public must be offered a drama," he told F

Douglas Brinkley: To Save the Gulf, Free the Mississippi

[The writer is professor of history at Rice University and author of The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.] ...Back in 1932 the Army Corps mistakenly raised the Mississippi River levies and built concrete jetties for flood control. The net effect of these engineering boondoggles - built ostensibly to improve navigation and reduce the need for dredging - has been to destroy Louisiana's incredible wetlands; already a landmass the size of Dela

Joseph A. Palermo: Obama's "Fireside Chat" (FDR or Jimmy Carter?)

[Joseph A. Palermo is Associate Professor of American History at California State University, Sacramento.] For well over a year now I've been wondering why President Barack Obama, (who is a talented communicator and a student of history), failed to recognize Franklin Delano Roosevelt's example of the necessity of speaking directly to the American people. Tonight, at long last, Obama gave his first "fireside chat." He should have done so long ago to clarify his efforts to r

Joyce Appleby: Living Wages are Key to Poverty Eradication

[Joyce Appleby is professor of history emerita at UCLA and a member of the LAANE Resource Board. Her latest book is "The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism, 2010."] Advocates for the poor are pushing against the same obstacles that 18th century opponents of slavery confronted: acceptance of an evil because of its familiarity. It's hard to be outraged by a condition that's been around for millenniums. Even the Great Emancipator despaired of ending poverty.

Burt Folsom: How Not to Pay For Damages from the Oil Spill

[Burt Folsom is professor of history at Hillsdale College.] Yes, the BP oil spill is a disaster. And BP needs to reach in its deep pockets to compensate businesses and restore the Gulf Coast. But should BP set up an “independently administered fund” to cover claims for people and businesses in the Gulf Coast damaged by the oil spill? That is the current proposal by the Obama administration–that BP set up a large fund that will be, in effect, administered by government officials, who

Willy Lam: Shaking Up China's Labor Movement

[Mr. Lam is a professor of China studies at Akita International University, Japan, and an adjunct professor of history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.] It's not often that the Chinese Communist Party gives way, yet Beijing has made initial concessions in the face of the most serious labor unrest in recent memory. This isn't just unusual; it represents a real turning point in China's economic development as the country's 400 million workers gain a stronger voice. The question

Andrei Lankov: Son Rising for a Post Dear Leader Era

[Andrei Lankov is an associate professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, and adjunct research fellow at the Research School of Pacifica and Asian Studies, Australian National University. He graduated from Leningrad State University with a PhD in Far Eastern history and China, with emphasis on Korea. He has published books and articles on Korea and North Asia.] A few days ago, a new session of the Supreme People's Assembly - North Korea's rubber-stamp parliament - was convened in Pyo

Jonathan Zimmerman: Some Truths Trump Even Crucial Alliances

[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). He can be reached at jlzimm@aol.com.] Does historical truth matter? Should we tell the truth even if it hurts? Or should we set it aside to serve our present-day purposes? I've been wondering about those questions ever

Van Gosse: Black Republicans' Problem with History

[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. He is author of Where the Boys Are: Cuba, Cold War America, and the Making of a New Left, The Movements of the New Left 1950-1975, and the forthcoming We Are Americans: Black Politics and the Origins of Black Power in Antebellum America.] The Republican Party is trumpeting its unprecedented number of Af

Bernd Fischer: Albania and Enver Hoxha's Legacy

[Bernd Fischer is a specialist in Albanian history. He is the author of Albania at War, 1939-45 (C Hurst, 1999), and Balkan Strongmen: Dictators and Authoritarian rulers of Southeast Europe (C Hurst, 2007).] When Enver Hoxha, Albania's long-term Stalinist dictator, was buried with honour under the socialist-realist statue of Mother Albania in the martyrs' cemetery in Tirana, the date of his death - 11 April 1985 - was omitted from his tombstone. Ramiz Alia, who followed Hoxha as sec

Victor Davis Hanson: Academia's Twisted Logic

[Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and editor, most recently, of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome.] ...OK — Washington seems to run now along the logic of the faculty lounge. But let me explain the rules of Lala land. Some of you were not academics for 21 years. No problem, you can easily imagine what the worldview is on campus — given that after six years on the job you cannot be fi

Moshe Dann: Why Is the State Department Covering for a Known Terror Group?

[The author, a former assistant professor of history, is a writer and journalist living in Jerusalem.] Why is the U.S. government covering for IHH, a Turkish “charity” organization with ties to terrorists? A State Department spokesman told Fox News that the IHH (Humanitarian Relief Foundation) has not been designated as a foreign terrorist organization. He added: We are fully committed to taking appropriate action against foreign groups engaging in

Muriam Haleh Davis: Africa and the World Cup: Soccer as Evolution?

[Muriam Haleh Davis is a graduate student in the department of History at New York University. Her research interests focus on race and decolonization in Algeria.] Africa, as Friedrich Hegel and Nicolas Sarkozy have lamented, never managed to enter the march of history. Regardless, in the next month, it will play a starring role in the World Cup. Not quite a free pass through the pearly gates of universal subjecthood, but close. Undoubtedly, soccer has always been a hi

Walter Russell Mead: The World Must Do More For Middle East Peace

[Walter Russell Mead is Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. He blogs at The-American-Interest.com.] Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have a lot to answer for in their 100-year-plus conflict over some of the most miserable and hardscrabble but somehow beloved land on the face of the earth. But the sad and sorry truth is that neither the Israelis nor the Pale

Julian Zelizer: For Obama, Crisis May Outweigh Record

[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 Jimmy Carter, to be published next fall by Times Books.] ...As Democrats move into the 2010 midterm elections and start thinking about 2012, the administration is struggling to deal with two difficult crises, both of which have gene

Daniel Okrent: No Closing Time for Income Taxes

[Daniel Okrent, a former public editor of The Times, is the author of “Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.”] ON March 19, 1928, eight years into the reign of constitutional Prohibition, Pierre S. du Pont wrote a letter to William P. Smith, one of the very few people he ever addressed by first name. Du Pont was among the wealthiest men in the world, chairman of both his family’s chemical colossus and the du Pont-controlled General Motors Corporation. Smith worked for a less

Ira Chernus: Why Don't We Have a National Narrative of Empathy?

[Ira Chernus is professor of religious studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Read more of his writing on Israel, Palestine and American Jews at his blog.] George Lakoff has many talents. But he cannot read hearts and minds. When he wrote recently that Barack Obama "knows in his heart" that acting on empathy "is the main business of government," it was sheer guesswork. As a trained scientist, Lakoff should know better than to make claims for which ther

Tze M. Loo: The Okinawa Question

[Tze M. Loo is an assistant professor of East Asian history at the University of Richmond, Virginia.] I have been thinking about Yukio Hatoyama’s sense of history since he stepped down as Japan’s prime minister last week, citing his failure to relocate the U.S. Marine air base out of Okinawa as one reason. Why did Hatoyama make this promise in the first place, given that the relocation of the Futenma base is a thorny, complicated issue that has been stalled for the last

Michael H. Hunt: The Obama National Security Strategy: “Mush” Ado about Nothing?

[Michael H. Hunt is Everett H. Emerson Professor of History Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His ten books include The American Ascendancy: How the United States Gained and Wielded Global Dominance and A Vietnam War Reader: A Documentary History from American and Vietnamese Perspectives. His comments “on Washington and the world” appear here regularly and can also be found on his website.] In the world of U.S. foreign policy, the release of a new National

Timothy Garton Ash: Don't Forget the Iranians Who Have Gone Up Against the Regime

[Timothy Garton Ash, a contributing editor to Opinion, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professorof European studies at Oxford University.] Do not forget Iran. Remember Neda. If there are green-clad protests in Tehran this weekend — to mark the first anniversary of the election that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole — they will doubtless again be crushed with casual brutality by the thugs of the Basij militia, the secret police and the Revolutionary Guard.