Roundup: Historians' Take

Daniel Martin Varisco: Hate, Times Squared

[Daniel Martin Varisco is Professor of Anthropology at Hofstra University.]Faisal Shahzad, not your typical terrorist: unless you think being a Pakistani Muslim makes you a typical terrorist. Anyone reading yesterday’s New York Post (Wednesday, May 5) and taking the blustered and bloated tabloid rhetoric seriously could easily make such an assumption. I do not, as a rule, read tabloids, although seeing what many others do read is a useful reality check from time t

Simon Szreter: Proportional Representation -- Historical Destiny Beckons?

History shows both how the two-party system has lasted for so long in our country and also why it has now outlasted its usefulness. It has entered, during the last two decades, a period of pathological obsolescence: dead on its feet, only kept alive by the life-support machine of the first-past-the-post electoral rule. The origins of the system lie in the aristocratic period of the 18th century but the system really flourished- and served British society tolerably well- during the 1

Nicolaus Mills: Pulling a Goldman

[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.] It’s time to add a new phrase to our vocabulary: “Pulling a Goldman.” There’s ample precedent for expressions that grow out of historical moments, then take on a life of their own—and given the reported $840.1 million that the Royal Bank of Scotland lost in its recent dealings with Goldman Sachs, we can co

Chalmers Johnson: Another Battle of Okinawa

[Chalmers Johnson is the author of several books, including "Blowback" and the forthcoming "Dismantling the Empire: America's Last, Best Hope."] The United States is on the verge of permanently damaging its alliance with Japan in a dispute over a military base in Okinawa. This island prefecture hosts three-quarters of all U.S. military facilities in Japan. Washington wants to build one more base there, in an ecologically sensitive area. The Okinawans vehemently o

KC Johnson: The Virginia Murder Case and the Duke "Rape" Case

[KC Johnson is a professor of history at Brooklyn College and author of Durham-in-Wonderland, a blog about the Duke lacrosse case.] It’s unsurprising that the case of University of Virginia lacrosse player George Huguely — charged with murdering women’s lacrosse player Yeardley Love — has attracted widespread media attention: A Division I athlete accused of killing another Division I athlete is extremely rare. The last such instance appears to have occurred in 2003, when former Bayl

Daniel Pipes: Why Would Anyone Want to Blow Up Times Square?

[Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.]When news comes of Muslims engaging in violence, the triad of politicians, law enforcement, and media invariably presumes that the perpetrator suffers from some mental or emotional incapacity. (For a quick listing of examples, see my collection at"Sudden Jihad or 'Ino

Timothy Garton Ash: This Could Be the Most Pivotal Election in British History

[Timothy Garton Ash is professor of European studies at Oxford University.] This time, vote Liberal Democrat. Vote Liberal wherever you can. Vote Liberal as if your life depended on it. Vote Liberal if you want a transformed politics and a modern, free country with a realistic view of its place in the world. No matter if you didn't last time; no matter if you won't next time. This time: seize the chance. Take the risk. I say this as someone who has never belonged to any

Tom Engelhardt: All-Volunteer Wars

[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

Geraldo L. Cadava: Arizona's Long History of Scapegoating

[Geraldo L. Cadava, a native of Tucson, teaches Latino history at Northwestern University. Harvard University Press will publish his forthcoming book on the Arizona-Sonora border region since World War II.] Responding to the controversy sparked by Arizona's new immigration law, Frank Rich of the New York Times wrote, "don't blame it all on Arizona," because the state's "hysteria" is only a symptom of the "political virus" sweeping America -- from the bi

Patrick J. Buchanan: "Bigots" Like Churchill and Jimmy Carter

[Patrick J. Buchanan is founding editor of The American Conservative and author, most recently, of Churchill, Hitler, and the “Unnecessary War”.] Gordon Brown may have torpedoed his last chance to be prime minister in his own right when, in the privacy of his limo, he called 66-year-old Gillian Duffy that “bigoted woman.” What had widow Duffy done to deserve the slur? After taking the Labor Party leader to task for several minutes, Mrs. Duffy raised the imm

Timothy Garton Ash: Fair Britannia, Splashing Around in Coalition Waters

[Timothy Garton Ash is professor of European studies at Oxford University.] In Berlin last weekend, people kept asking me about the May 6 British election and I kept asking them the German for “hung parliament.” None could help me. The German for “hung parliament” is simply “parliament,” because the proportional representation system the country adopted in 1949 routinely produces parliaments with no overall majority, the result so feared in Britain. At a quick count, the Federal Rep

Steven Fielding: Hung Parliament!

[Steven Fielding is professor of political history at the University of Nottingham.] "This brief tour through of Britain’s political past reveals something else: to be Prime Minister you do not need to be a party leader or the leader of the biggest element in a coalition..." The prospect of a hung Parliament has provoked the Conservatives – along with their allies at the Daily Mail - into trying to scare the living daylights out of us. Some horror

Matthew Grant: The Nuclear Weapons Issue in British Elections

[Matthew Grant is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures at the University of Manchester. After completing his PhD at Queen Mary, University of London, he taught History at the University of Sheffield in 2007-9. He is author of After the Bomb: Civil Defence and Nuclear War in Britain, 1945-68 (Palgrave Macmillan).] Britain's nuclear deterrent is an ageing resource. The Trident submarines carrying the United Kingdom's nuclear weapons will not last l

Sean Wilentz: Is Bob Dylan a Phony?

[Sean Wilentz is a professor of history at Princeton University. His new book, Bob Dylan in America, from which portions of this article are drawn, will be published by Doubleday in September.] When Joni Mitchell trashed Bob Dylan in an interview with the Los Angeles Times last week, using words like “plagiarist,” “fake,” and “deception,” the music blogosphere caught fire. In one corner was a beloved singer-songwriter, in the other, a legend, someone who has been described as the su

Simon Schama: Three-Way Race for the UK's Top Slot

[Schama is a University Professor of art history and history at Columbia University.] Once upon a time, almost two and a half centuries ago, there lived two systems of representative government, separated by an ocean. English was their common language, and talk of law and liberty their common habit, but there the resemblance stopped, for one was fair and one foul. On the eastern shore, the body politic was engorged with money. Venal interests bought the services of legislators and r

Amii Omara-Otunnu: Confronting Tyranny In Africa In The Era Of Barack Obama

[Dr. Amii Omara-Otunnu, D.Phil. (Oxon.), is UNESCO Chair-holder & Executive Director, UNESCO Institute of Comparative Human Rights, Executive Director, UConn-ANC Partnership & Professor of History.] ...The test of credibility and consistency for the Obama administration will increase in intensity as people begin to direct spotlights on the various elections scheduled to be held in a number of countries, among which are Burundi, Ethiopia, Guinea, Niger, Rwanda, Uganda and Zam

Julian Zelizer: Arizona Law Foes' Best Weapon is Dollars

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. His new book is "Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security: From World War II to the War on Terrorism," published by Basic Books. Zelizer writes widely about current events.] ...Pro-immigration groups have started a national boycott against Arizona. The boycott promises to be substantial in scale and scope. San Francisco, California, Mayor Gavin Ne

Victor Davis Hanson: Liberal Presidents Have It Easy in War

[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.] In politics, having power and keeping it often mean fudging a little on ideology. So conservatives sometimes convince the country to do very liberal things — think of Richard Nixon going to China, Ronald Reagan granting a blanket amnesty to ill

Walter Laqueur: Europe's Decline is No Cause for Schadenfreude

[Walter Laqueur is the author most recently of The Last Days of Europe (St. Martin’s Press, 2007) and Best of Times, Worst of Times: Memoirs of a Political Education (Brandeis University Press, 2009).] Europe used to be, within the living memory of many of us, the cockpit of world power, prosperity and prestige. Today it is raw material for an ouija board. Predictions about Europe’s future range from its impending suicide to its emergence as a unified, leading economic and political

Victor Davis Hanson: The Remains of a California Day

[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.] Yesterday I think I understood why California is in deep trouble. Let me walk you through another day out here. At 7AM I put a few letters in my armored, heavy-duty steel rural mailbox. Four thefts of mail in the last five years