Roundup: Historians' Take

Jonathan Zimmerman: Our Leaders' Privacy Isn't All We Might Lose

[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).] Here's an old cliché, tired but true: You never know what goes on inside somebody else's marriage. But in the case of Al and Tipper Gore, why would you want to know? That's the real question raised by the Gores' separation, which they announced last week

Harold James: China’s Renminbi Seen as a Major Reserve Currency

[Harold James is professor of history and international affairs at Princeton University and Marie Curie professor of history at the European University Institute, Florence. His most recent book is The Creation and Destruction of Value: The Globalisation Cycle.] Fears about sovereign debt and doubts about the euro rescue package have pushed the question of international reserve currencies to the fore. Until this spring, most observers had assumed that the share of the dollar in inter

Ilan Pappe: What Drives Israel?

[Ilan Pappe is professor of history at the University of Exeter, and director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies. His books include The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine and A History Of Modern Palestine. His forthcoming memoir, Out Of The Frame (published this October by Pluto Press), will chart his break with mainstream Israeli scholarship and its consequences.] Probably the most bewildering aspect of the Gaza flotilla affair has been the righteous indignation expressed by t

Peter A. Coclanis: An Optimist Envisions America at Midcentury

[Peter A. Coclanis is Albert R. Newsome distinguished professor of history and director of the Global Research Institute at UNC Chapel Hill.] *Joel Kotkin, The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050 (Penguin, 2010) In his provocative new book the California-based writer Joel Kotkin argues that by midcentury the population of the United States will grow by at least 100 million - to more than 400 million people in all. Although the author readily admits that adjusting to

Roy Schreiber: Should Indiana Reform How It Awards College Degrees?

[Roy Schreiber is a professor of history emeritus. He taught at Indiana University South Bend.] The vast majority of students who come through the public school systems in Indiana are reluctant university students. Just ask them. This is especially true of those who attend the state-funded universities like Indiana and Purdue and all their regional campuses. These fresh-out-of-high-school students are there for a degree, not an education. Most of them come to universiti

Julian Zelizer: Why Obama Should Forget "Change You Can Believe In"

[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.] Congressional Democrats have been warning President Obama to tone down his anti-Washington rhetoric. While the president has continued to expound on his campaign

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: The Anniversary of Tiananmen Square

[Jeffrey Wasserstrom's China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know was published in April by Oxford University Press.]The Chinese protest surge that ended in bloodshed exactly 21 years ago today near central Beijing's Tiananmen Square continues to exert a powerful hold on Western thinking about China. The very term"Tiananmen" has taken on a powerful and protean life of its own in the realm of political analogy: Last July, for example, commentators wondered whether Tehran

Thomas Barfield: Yes, Afghanistan is Medieval

[Thomas Barfield is a professor of anthropology at Boston University and author of Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History, released in April.] In July 1973, Afghanistan's King Mohammed Zahir Shah was overthrown by his cousin Daud, who then abolished the monarchy and declared himself the president of a republic. The New York Times sarcastically editorialized that Afghanistan had just "leaped into the sixteenth century." Radio reports soon brought news of this slight

Gary Bruce: Ich bin ein Ost-Berliner?

[Gary Bruce is a history professor at the University of Waterloo. His latest book is The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi.]Gabriela S., whether she intended to or not, has caused many in Germany to rethink their view of racism. The 49 year-old bookkeeper, originally from East Berlin but now resident in western Germany, sued a Stuttgart firm in the amoun

Timothy Garton Ash: Norway's Many Lessons

[Timothy Garton Ash, a contributing editor to Opinion, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor of European studies at Oxford University.] "Equal pay now! Equal pay now!" The chant echoed up to my hotel window in Oslo, as strikers and their supporters marched past the Norwegian parliament. How could this be? Are there strikes even in paradise? By most comparative measures, Norway is something close to a paradise on Earth. It is one of the wor

Paul Ortiz: Arizona's New Laws: An Attempt to Secure Cheap Labor?

[Paul Ortiz is an associate professor of history at the University of Florida. He is writing a book titled"Our Separate Struggles Are Really One: African American and Latino Histories," that will be published by Beacon Press.]Why are there 40 million poor people in America? When you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic eco

William Astore: Doubling Down in Afghanistan

[William Astore (wjastore@gmail.com) is a TomDispatch regular. A retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), he taught at the USAF Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School and currently teaches History at the Pennsylvania College of Technology.] As Congress moves toward rubber-stamping yet another “emergency” supplemental bill that includes more than $33 billion for milit

Shelomo Alfassa: Beware the Cordoba Initiative

[Shelomo Alfassa is the former US director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries and a scholar of Judaic life in Islamic Spain. He lives in New York.] The world should know that the ‘Cordoba Initiative,’ the New York City based organization desiring to construct a massive Islamic house of prayer at ‘Ground Zero,’ has posted on its website, a peculiar and disingenuous statement indicating the desire to bring back the atmosphere of, “interfaith tolerance and respect that we have lon

Joseph A. Palermo: Glenn Beck Riffs on My Article

[Mr. Palermo is Associate Professor of American History at CSU, Sacramento. He's the author of two books on Robert F. Kennedy: In His Own Right (2001) and RFK (2008).] All in all, I think Glenn Beck’s riff on my article was far more measured than I would have expected. Compared to the ad hominem attacks I’ve endured from many of Beck’s followers in the comments sections of various blogs, Beck himself was comparably very civil and fair. A former student had emailed me saying he saw B

Victor Davis Hanson: The Turkish Government as Global Arbiter of Ethnic Violence

[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.] The virulent worldwide reaction to Israeli’s handling of the Gaza flotilla has been quite instructive. The bankrupt Greeks, for example, are taking a holiday from railing at the Germans to demonstrate in solidarity with the Turkish-organized Gaza effort, which puts them on the same sid

Mark LeVine: Israel's 'Friends' Also to Blame

[Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden. His most recent books are Heavy Metal Islam (Random House) and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books).] Perhaps now Americans will understand the true nature of the Israeli occupation. It has never been about security. Not for one day. It has been about land and power. And this is where it has led. A

Nicolaus Mills: Conservative Split with the Tea Party

[Nicolaus Mills is professor of American studies at Sarah Lawrence College and co-editor with Michael Walzer of Getting Out: Historical Perspectives on Leaving Iraq.] In recent weeks nobody has been more critical of the Tea Party’s favorite new politician, Rand Paul, the Republican Senate candidate from Kentucky, than New York Times conservative op-ed columnist, Ross Douthat. In his May 24 column, “The Principles of Rand Paul,” Douthat delivered a blistering attack on P

Tom Engelhardt: Living in a State of Denial

[Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the Cold War and beyond, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. His new book, The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books), will be published in June.]Graduates of the class of 2010, I’m honored to have been asked to address you today, but I would not want to be you.

Clayton E. Cramer: Rand Paul and the Civil Rights Act of 1964

[Clayton E. Cramer is a software engineer and historian. His sixth book, Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie (Nelson Current, 2006), is available in bookstores. His web site is www.claytoncramer.com.] The news media and blogosphere are all abuzz about Republican Rand Paul’s opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited businesses from discriminating against customers based o

Timothy R. Furnish: Former Air Force JAG Looks to Drive All Christian Symbolism from Military

[Timothy R. Furnish (M.A.R., Church History; Ph.D., Islamic History) is a writer and researcher as well as a former 101st Airborne Division Arabic interrogator and a recovering college professor. His upcoming book (early 2011) is The Caliphate: Threat or Opportunity? He also tracks Islamic messianism and eschatology on his site www.mahdiwatch.org]Persecution of Christians worldwide, particularly at the