Roundup: Historians' Take

Julian Zelizer: Time for Democrats to Take a Risk

[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.] After the Republicans and Democrats met at the White House summit on health care, it was clear that the parties are very far away from a bipartisan agreement. Indeed, few part

Efraim Karsh: Muslims Have a History of Fighting Each Other

[Efraim Karsh, the head of Middle East and Mediterranean studies at King’s College London, is the author of "Islamic Imperialism: A History" and the forthcoming “Palestine Betrayed.”] The Islamic Solidarity Games, the Olympics of the Muslim world, which were to be held in Iran in April, have been called off by the Arab states because Tehran inscribed “Persian Gulf” on the tournament’s official logo and medals. It’s a small but telling controversy. It puts the

Niall Ferguson: American Empire ... Here Today, Gone Tomorrow?

[Niall Ferguson is a professor at Harvard University and Harvard Business School, and a fellow of Jesus College, Oxford. His latest book is "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World." A longer version of this essay appears in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs. foreign.affairs.com.] For centuries, historians, political theorists, anthropologists and the public have tended to think about the political process in seasonal, cyclical terms. From Polybius to

Jon Wiener: Big Tobacco and the Historians

[Jon Wiener started writing for The Nation in 1984. Since then he's written more than 100 stories and reviews for the magazine, many about American history, university politics, and California life. He's also professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, and a Los Angeles radio host. His most recent book is Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud, and Politics in the Ivory Tower (New Press). This article appeared in the March 15, 2010 edition of The Nation.] Last su

Julian Zelizer: Don't Blame Congress for Leaders' Faults

[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.] When Sen. Evan Bayh announced that he would step down from the Senate, he said that Congress had become a dysfunctional institution. "I love helping our citizens make the

Andrew J. Bacevich: Why the United States Must Withdraw from NATO

[Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University.] Over the course of the disastrous 20th century, inhabitants of the liberal democratic world in ever-increasing numbers reached this conclusion: War doesn't pay and usually doesn't work. As recounted by historian James J. Sheehan in his excellent book, Where Have All the Soldiers Gone?, the countries possessing the greatest capability to employ force to further their political aims lost the

Jeffrey Herf: How Nazism Shaped Islamist Views

[Jeffrey Herf's 'Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World' is published by Yale University Press. He is a professor of modern European and German history at the University of Maryland at College Park.] Political Islam is partly the product of a cultural fusion between European and Islamist traditions of Jew-hatred. Nazism's Arabic-language propaganda aimed at the Middle East during the Second World War indicates that a crucial chapter in the history of that fusion took place in Berlin dur

Robert S. McElvaine: Let's Start Calling Conservatives "Regressives"

[Robert S. McElvaine is a professor of history at Millsaps College and the author of ten books. He is a frequent contributor to the op ed pages of the major national newspapers and blogs for the Huffington Post.] It has been about three decades since self-identified "conservatives" pulled off the remarkable feat of turning liberal into a four-letter word. Now they're trying to do the same to progressive. At the recent CPAC convention in Washington, television

Sean Wilentz: Obama, Fire Your Staff!

[Sean Wilentz is a history professor at Princeton University whose books include The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln and The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008. He is a contributing editor at The New Republic, and historian-in-residence at Bob Dylan's official Web site.] Now that President Obama has confronted some harsh political realities over health-care reform and has seen his public-approval ratings fall down to earth, he can do many things to set his administ

Andrew Wiest: Is Afghanistan Today's South Vietnam?

[Andrew Wiest is professor of history at the University of Southern Mississippi, where he is co-director of the Center for the Study of War and Society. He is the author of "Vietnam's Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN," (New York University Press, 2008).] After the fall of South Vietnam in 1975, U.S. Col. Harry Summers remarked to his North Vietnamese counterpart, "You know you never defeated us on the battlefield." After a moment, the North Vietna

Piers Brendon: Is America Like Rome Before the Fall? Not Yet

[Piers Brendon, a fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, is the author of “The Decline and Fall of the British Empire.”] Vice President Joe Biden complains that he is being driven crazy because so many people are betting on America’s demise. Reports of it are not just exaggerated; they are, he insists, ridiculous. Like President Obama, he will not accept “second place” for the United States. Despite the present crippling budget deficit and the crushing burden of projected debt, he

Walter Russell Mead: Drinking Tea in America Today

[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.] At the tea parties here in glamorous Queens we make sure we serve genuine Devonshire clotted cream with the scones and we keep our pinkies carefully extended while lifting the delicate porcelain cups to our lips, but a very different kind of Tea Party has my friends

Edward Luttwak: In Praise of Aerial Bombing

[Edward Luttwak is author of The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire.] Ever since the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey cast doubt on the efficacy of aerial bombardment in World War II, and particularly after its failure to bring victory in the Vietnam War, air power has acquired a bad reputation. Nowadays, killing enemies from the skies is widely considered useless, while its polar opposite, counterinsurgency by nation-building, is the U.S. government's official policy. But it's not

Ashley Cruseturner: Healthcare May Be “Manifest Destiny” for this President and Congress

[Ashley Cruseturner teaches American history at McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas.] After thirteen months on the job, President Obama’s renewed call to “move forward in a bipartisan fashion” faces an increasingly skeptical and entrenched opposition. As he prepares to convene a highly publicized peace conference concerning the health care impasse, Republican leaders openly suspect the meeting is merely a diversion to rally public opinion on his behalf. Perhaps

Victor Davis Hanson: The ‘I Am Not George Bush’ Policy

[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.] The first year of the Obama administration has been a vertiginous pile of confusions and contradictions. In hunting for a theme to its decision making, we might start with Obama’s relation to his predecessor. THE WORLD WAR II AN

Maura Elizabeth Cunningham and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom: A Tale of Two Presidents in China

[Maura Elizabeth Cunningham is the Editor of the “China Beat” blog/electronic magazine and a graduate student in history at the University of California, Ivrine. Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is a Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, and the author, most recently, of “China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know” (Oxford University Press, April 2010). Note: an earlier version of this essay appeared on the “History News Network” website.]

Kate Merkel-Hess: As China Beat Heads Into Its Third Year…

[Kate Merkel-Hess is an ACLS/Mellon postdoctoral fellow at the University of California - Irvine, the editor of"The China Beat" blog/electronic magazine, and a co-editor of China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance.] In January, we marked the end of our second year online. China Beat has changed a lot during that time, and will be changing more in the coming weeks and months as China Beat’s new editor, Maura Cunningham, takes the helm. It’s been my pleasure

Jonathan Tremblay: A Brief History of Heroin at Oxford University

[Jonathan Tremblay is a Historian and works as a Breaking News Editor for the History News Network] It was recently revealed by an anonymous e-mail to the authorities that heroin sale and use at Oxford’s Christ Church College is “rampant”. Analysts suggests that this is no surprise and that it is even part of a “decades-long drug culture” that has been running wild at Oxford and other high-level institutions of schooling since the 1960s. One would think, with a reputation as one of

Daniel Mandel: The Concept of "International Opinion" is Beyond Bogus

[Daniel Mandel is a fellow in history at Melbourne University, director of the Zionist Organization of America's Center for Middle East Policy and author of H.V. Evatt and the Establishment of Israel: The Undercover Zionist (Routledge, London, 2004).] In recent days, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren was heckled relentlessly and interrupted vociferously by members of University of California at Irvine's Muslim Student Union. Such negation of civility, discourse an

Jonathan Zimmerman: Schools Must Teach Our Children that Free Speech Requires Civility

[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.] Let's suppose a student walks through the halls of her high school carrying a big banner denouncing one of her teachers. I'd be OK with the school's confiscating the banner, and I bet you would