Roundup: Historians' Take

Geoffrey Alderman: Why British University Standards Have Fallen

[Geoffrey Alderman is currently Michael Gross professor of politics & contemporary history at the University of Buckingham.] ...I believe that there has been a decline in academic standards overall in British higher education over the past two decades, but not for the reasons advanced by the AGR. The evidence for this decline is contained in the 2009 report, Students and Universities, of the then select committee on innovation, universities, science and skills. In my written and

Gillis J. Harp: Conservatives Should Not Get Too Close to Ayn Rand

[Dr. Gillis J. Harp is professor of history at Grove City College and member of the faith & politics working group with The Center for Vision & Values.] Prior to the 1990s, few scholarly studies of post-World War II American conservatism were published. Happily, this situation has changed in recent years. Much solid academic work has appeared which takes conservative thought seriously and attempts to explain its historical and cultural context. Jennifer Burns' new biography

Thomas Meaney and Harris Mylonas: Greece's Crisis, Germany's Gain

[Thomas Meaney is a doctoral candidate in modern history at Columbia University. Harris Mylonas is an assistant professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University.] Why did it take four months for Europe's parent nations -- Germany and France -- to prop up the continent's prodigal son, Greece? And what can the European Union do when it comes to coping with such behavior with its other children? There is little doubt Greece needs to

Diane Ravitch: The "Big Idea" -- It's Bad Education Policy

[Diane Ravitch, a historian of education, is the author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education."] There have been two features that regularly mark the history of U.S. public schools. Over the last century, our education system has been regularly captivated by a Big Idea -- a savant or an organization that promised a simple solution to the problems of our schools. The second is that there are no simple so

Julian Zelizer: Watching Congress Make Sausages

[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” (Basic Books, 2010).] All eyes are on Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She must persuade House Democrats to vote for the Senate health care bill with no changes. They must take it on faith that the upper chamber will add sought-after provisions using reconciliation.

Nicolas Kinloch: What is History in Schools For?

[Nicolas Kinloch teaches history at the Netherhall School & Sixth Form College, Cambridge.] Let’s come straight to the point. What is history in schools for? I ask because the answer, though currently widely debated, seems to be far from obvious to our rulers, or even to some who teach the subject. I’m not wholly surprised: I myself don’t believe most of the reasons that are usually produced. A firm favourite with government at the moment is the idea of ‘identity’ o

Edmund Morris: Why Is Obama Reading My Book?

[Edmund Morris is the author of biographies of Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Beethoven. This fall he will publish the third volume of his Roosevelt trilogy.] An author’s first reaction to the news that the president of the United States is reading one of his books is, naturally enough, admiration for the man’s superb taste in prose. Then come qualms. What if he gets bored and badmouths it on Jay Leno? What if he is seen using the paperback edition to swat horseflies at Camp

Mark Mazower: Greece’s History is Defined by Foreign Meddling

[The writer teaches history at Columbia University.] Sympathy for the Greeks is in short supply. But their European partners need to come up with a better response and this will require getting to grips with the deeper roots of Greece’s predicament. I do not refer to the widely touted claim that Greece is a serial defaulter; the research paper (by Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff) that introduced the idea suggests that Greece’s record over the past 100 years is not exceptional. (Its only de

Ashley Cruseturner: Rick Perry Tamed the Tea Party

[Ashley Cruseturner teaches American history at McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas.] Last week in Texas, Rick Perry registered a definitive triumph in the Republican gubernatorial primary, capturing 51 percent of the vote in a fiercely contested three-person race. His comfortable victory offers a unique window into the upheaval currently roiling American politics. When Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison decided back in 2008 to challenge Rick Perry for the governorsh

Diane Ravitch: Why I Changed My Mind About School Reform

[Ms. Ravitch is author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education," published last week by Basic Books.] I have been a historian of American education since 1975, when I received my doctorate from Columbia. I have written histories, and I've also written extensively about the need to improve students' knowledge of history, literature, geography, science, civics and foreign languages. So in 1991, when Lamar A

Tony Platt: Remembering History's Shame

[I'm recently retired from some 40 years of full-time teaching American history, public policy, and social sciences at University of Chicago (1966-1968), Berkeley (1968-1977), and California State University, Sacramento (1977-2007). I completed an undergraduate degree at Oxford University (1960-1963) and received my doctorate from Berkeley in 1966.] While on a trip to the east coast from my home in Berkeley I get the news that yet another Native American site on California's northw

Paul V. Dutton: France Reformed Health Care in Tough Times; Why Can't We?

[Paul V. Dutton is executive director of the Interdisciplinary Health Policy Institute and professor of European history at Northern Arizona University. He is author of "Differential Diagnoses: A Comparative History of Health Care Problems and Solutions in the United States and France" (Cornell, 2007) and "Origins of the French Welfare State" (Cambridge, 2002).] ...Let's take France, whose health care ideals are probably most similar to our own. The French share

Joseph N. Tatarewicz: American Spaceflight's Murky Future

[Joseph N. Tatarewicz is associate professor of history at University of Maryland, Baltimore County and director of the Human Context of Science & Technology Program. His e-mail is tatarewicz@umbc.edu.] For the first time, a U.S. president has canceled the main future human spaceflight program, leaving NASA without a direction, soon without a vehicle to fly people in space, and with its role as world space leader in doubt. H

Tom Engelhardt: Washington’s Cult of Narcissism and Iraq

[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 latest book, The American Way of War (Haymarket Books), will be published in May.]Hubris?  We’re bigger than that! We’ve now been at war with, or in, Iraq for almost 20 years, and intermittently at war in Afghanis

Paul C. Rosier: Native Americans' Enduring Struggle for Justice

[Paul C. Rosier is an associate professor of history at Villanova University.] In December 2009, the Obama administration settled a 13-year old legal dispute over the federal government’s management of American Indian land trust accounts that date to the late 19th century. The $3.4 billion settlement addressed the frauds and failures of government oversight of Indian monies. It also provided a measure of justice to American Indians, who, despite the poor treatment accorded them in m

Adam Crymble: Canadian Historians in the Newspaper

[Adam Crymble is the web editor for the Network in Canadian History & Environment and writes a monthly column for Active History.] What if my supervisor disagrees with what I write? What if someone in the community sends me a nasty email? What if the editor ignores my article? There are plenty of excuses young historians turn to when they convince themselves not to write opinion pieces for the newspaper. But, there are even more good reasons why they should: what if

Benny Morris: Why the "Peaceniks" in Israel Have Been Unsuccessful

[Benny Morris is a professor of history at Ben-Gurion University and the author, most recently, of the book One State, Two States.] Israel’s left-wing parties, primarily Labor (but also the farther-left Meretz), were dealt a mortal blow by Yasser Arafat’s rejection of the two-state compromises successively offered by Ehud Barak, then Israel’s prime minister, and former U.S. President Bill Clinton, in July and December 2000, and by the Palestinians’ violent follow-up, the launching o

Philip Jenkins: The Real Showdown Between Christians and Muslims is in Africa

[Philip Jenkins is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Religious Studies at Pennsylvania State University.] ...The most striking point about these battles was that nobody found them striking. In Jos, as in countless other regions across Africa and Asia, violence between Christians and Muslims can erupt at any time, with the potential to detonate riots, civil wars, and persecutions. While these events are poorly reported in the West, they matter profoundly. All the attention i

Julian Zelizer: GOP Health Care Refusal Could Backfire

[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.] ...Republicans have a long history in the 20th century of having to defend their record of opposition to popular programs. President Dwight Eisenhower famously told fellow Repu

Victor Davis Hanson: No Allies — But Plenty of Enemies

[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.]Almost 30 years after losing a war over the Falkland Islands, Argentina is once again warning Britain that it still wants back what it calls the Malvinas. Argentina is now angry over a British company's oil exploration off the windswept islands in w