Roundup: Historians' Take

Anthony Grafton: Kindled

[Anthony T. Grafton teaches the cultural history of early modern Europe at Princeton University. His books include Defenders of the Text (Harvard University Press) and Joseph Scaliger (Oxford University Press).] The airplane rises from the runway. Bent, folded, and spindled into the last seat in coach class--the one that doesn’t really recline--I pull my Kindle out of the seat pocket in front of me, slide the little switch, and lose myself in Matthew Crawford’s story of his passage

Julian Zelizer: It's the Institutions, Stupid!

At its halfway point, the 111th Congress is faring poorly in the court of public opinion. By November 2009, only 26 percent of Americans approved of how Congress was doing its job, according to Gallup; other polls point to similar results. Still, there are a number of reasons why Democratic leaders should be pleased with its performance. Congress passed a $787 billion economic stimulus bill that many experts say helped stabilize the financial markets and is leading to a steady, if s

Victor Davis Hanson: Beating the Dead Terrorist Horse

[Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the editor of the forthcoming Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome]Most of the current acrimony over counterterrorism is stale. The debate is simply a rehash of issues that were discussed and, in

Dilip Hiro: Iran, 1979 and 2010

The dramatic images of protestors in Iran fearlessly facing -- and sometimes countering -- the brutal attacks of the regime’s security forces rightly gain the admiration and sympathy of viewers in the West. They also leave many Westerners assuming that this is a preamble to regime change in Tehran, a repeat of history, but with a twist. After all, Iran has the distinction of being the only Middle Eastern state that underwent a revolutionary change -- 31 years ago -- which originated as a mild s

Carl Paulus: What's Been Missed with Harry Reid's Comment

[Carl Paulus is a Ph.D. candidate at Rice University and studies nineteenth-century American politics.] This past weekend it was revealed that Harry Reid in 2008 referred to then-Senator Obama as "light skinned" and "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." The reaction to these revelations came as expected: Republicans called for Reid to resign from his leadership position, while Democrats circled the wagons around the Senate Majority Leader. Desp

Jon Wiener: Obama's Secrecy Problem

[Jon Wiener, a contributing editor of the Nation, teaches American history at UC Irvine and is the author of, among other books, "Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files."] 'For a long time now there's been too much secrecy in this city." That's what President Obama said on his first day in office. He was talking about the way George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had used 9/11 as a pretext for pulling a veil over many of their key policies and actions. Last week, Obama

Jonathan Tremblay: The Vatican Reveals Secret Documents: Selling off History

[Jonathan Tremblay is a Historian and Breaking News Editor for the History News Network] Historians are abuzz with a new announcement from the Vatican. They will be releasing 105 documents to the public from their secret archives, many of which were never known to even exist. Kept in the vaults of St. Peter for a millennium, this very small sampling of fascinating literary sources would probably not have braved the centuries were it not for the extremely stringent conservation and a

Paul Kennedy: A Trainspotter's Guide to the Future of the World

[Paul Kennedy is Dilworth Professor of History and director of International Security Studies at Yale University. His books include “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.” ] The article didn’t make for pleasant reading, especially for people like myself who think that efficient railway services and other forms of well-run mass transport are a subtle but nifty measure of a country’s level of civilization and, in most cases, of its social and economic fabric. (Having being born

David Greenberg: The Honeymooners

[David Greenberg, a historian at Rutgers University, is the author of Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image] The promise and selling point of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign—breaking with the past, delivering something new—was the oldest promise in American politics. Since European settlers crossed the Atlantic imagining (mistakenly) a “new world” without history, Americans have rewarded talk of new beginnings. The early colonists sought to create a society de novo in ways that Europ

Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse: An American World of War: What to Watch for in 2010

[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 Day

Thomas Fleming: Prohibition: A Cautionary Tale

[Mr. Fleming, a former president of the Society of American Historians, is the author, most recently, of "The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers" (Smithsonian, 2009).] On Dec. 5, 1933, Americans liberated themselves from a legal nightmare called Prohibition by repealing the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Today most people think Prohibition was fueled by puritanical Protestants who believed drinking alcohol was a sin. But the vocal minority who made Prohibition law

Walter Russell Mead: Obama's Carter Syndrome

[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.] Neither a cold-blooded realist nor a bleeding-heart idealist, Barack Obama has a split personality when it comes to foreign policy. So do most U.S. presidents, of course, and the ideas that inspire this one have a long history at the core of the American political t

Julian E. Zelizer: Blame Game Won't Stop Terrorism

[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.] Almost as soon as the botched Christmas airplane bombing hit the airwaves, the politics of national security reared its head… While politicians play the blame game when things go wrong -- looking for the i

Max Hastings: Stalin would have shot the bankers for their greed

Alastair Darling's 50 per cent levy on bankers' bonuses has raised a cheer across the land. No matter whether the measure is fair, enforceable or even legal, action to punish the greed of the City's fattest felines is assured of popular support. The Chancellor's initiative is ruthlessly political. It represents his blunderbuss answer to an issue which is causing sleepless nights for finance ministers throughout the Western world, and to which there are no easy answers.

Paul Kennedy: Rome offers Obama a lesson in limits

[The writer is a history professor at Yale University.] To govern, is to choose This was the famous and ironic motto of French diplomats of the 17th and 18th centuries. As they saw it, in an anarchical international world, choosing priorities is tough. The rulers of national states, even those who appear strong and privileged, often find themselves forced to make hard choices. It may be better, then, to consider at an early stage how much one can take on. An incoming pr

Victor Davis Hanson: The Origins of Obamism

I do not think it will be easy to delay Obamism. It is not just that both houses of Congress are under liberal leadership with ample majorities, with a White House and captive media egging them on. The problem is that now the entire engine of the federal government is harnessed in the most unapologetic way to pushing through a far left agenda. There is no shame, no hesitancy in using the full powers of the state. How does that work out? Without qualification (remember we are in a ne

Juan Cole: Top Ten Middle East Crises, 2009

[Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute] 10. Dubai, a financial hub of the Gulf, collapsed economically, and worries were raised that Dubai World could default on billions in loans. Only the likelihood that oil-rich sister emirate, Abu Dhabi, would likely bail Dubai out at least to some extent kept there from being a panic.9. T

Daniel Pipes & Wafa Sultan: Moderate Islam: Western Ally or Western Myth? - A Debate

[Dr. Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Dr. Wafa Sultan is a Syrian-born American psychiatrist] Can there be a truly moderate Islam compatible with liberal-democratic notions of human rights and democracy? Is "radical Islam" a modern phenomenon or is Islam itself inherently radical? Mr. Pipes began by emphasizing that he and Ms. Sultan are allies, fighting the same opponents, namely, the Islamists. They agree on the past and present of Islam

Niall Ferguson: The decade the world tilted east

[Niall Ferguson is Laurence A Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, author of The Ascent of Money and a contributing editor of the FT.] I am trying to remember now where it was, and when it was, that it hit me. Was it during my first walk along the Bund in Shanghai in 2005? Was it amid the smog and dust of Chonqing, listening to a local Communist party official describe a vast mound of rubble as the future financial centre of south-west China? That was last year, and som

Julian E. Zelizer: Four new Kings on the Hill in Washington

[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"] Last month, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a strong defender of the public option for health care, warned: "I don't want four Democratic senators dictating to the other 56 of us and to the country, when the public option has this much support