Roundup: Historians' Take

Gil Troy: An ode to Tom Brydon - and all teaching assistants TAs are the unsung heroes of the university world

As students return to university this month, the main focus on campus is on the dynamic between students and their professors. "Who's teaching the course?" is the question on so many students' lips. But they often give or get a partial answer. The truth is, at McGill and most large universities, students are not taught only by the professor, the marquee name on any course. In the many large lectures that abound, students are taught - and their experiences are often dramatically shaped

Nelson Lichtenstein: This Labor Day, Is the World of Work a More Secure and Lawful Place?

[Nelson Lichtenstein, an historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the author of The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business (Metropolitan Books)] America may finally be climbing out of a really nasty recession, but things are hardly going back to the old "normal." The way we think about our work lives is going to change in a profound way. This has less to do with legislation - although there will be new laws and regulations

Victor Davis Hanson: Whining Will Get You Nowhere

[Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College, where he teaches each fall semester courses in military history and classical culture.]The Tingl

Victor Davis Hanson: What We Are Learning About the Era of Obama

[Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College, where he teaches each fall semester courses in military history and classical culture.]Means and

Juan Cole: Labor Day in a Kleptocracy

The unemployment rate as I write is inching toward 10 percent nationally, and that is only counting people who were still looking for a job recently. A vast bank robbery by the corrupt on Wall Street has deprived them of the credit that made the economy go. Labor Day was passed by Congress under Grover Cleveland to celebrate not only the individual American laborer but the labor movement-- yes, unions, workers' parades, hard hats and blue jeans (before the youth movement of the 1960s appropria

Timothy P. Lynch: Unions still needed today

Timothy P. Lynch, Ph.D., is a professor of history at the College of Mount St. Joseph and the author of "Strike Songs of the Depression." We celebrate Labor Day 2009 during the worst economic times since the Great Depression. Last year at this time dark clouds gathered on the economic horizon. This year the rain is falling hard. Home foreclosures, bank failures, and rising unemployment are among the financial troubles that challenge our nation. As we face those problems, we also need to reconsider the role organized labor should play in our economy. During the 1930s, at the depths of the Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Wagner Act, securing for workers the right to join a union. No economic reform did more to grow the middle class than union representation. I know that not only as a historian who has studied the labor movement, but also from personal experience as the son of a union member.

Lawrence S. Wittner: Japan's Election and Anti-Nuclear Momentum

[Lawrence Wittner is professor of history at the State University of New York–Albany and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus. His latest book is Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford University Press).]Although the smashing victory of the opposition Democratic Party in Japan's parliamentary elections of August 30 had numerous causes, one of the results will be a strengthening of the campaign for a nuclear weapons-free world.

Jim Sleeper: Corporate free speech? Since when?

[Jim Sleeper, a lecturer in political science at Yale, teaches a seminar on Journalism, Liberalism and Democracy.] ‘IF DANCING nude and burning the flag are protected by the First Amendment, why would it not protect robust speech about the people who are running for office?’’ So asks Theodore B. Olson, George W. Bush’s solicitor general until 2004. He is now the lead advocate for Citizens United, a nonprofit corporation that produced “Hillary: The Movie’’ to swift-boat Senator Clin

Juan Cole: The Great Withdrawer: George Will repudiates the Hawks

Conservative columnist George Will, having argued earlier this week for a US withdrawal from Afghanistan, today says we should get out of Iraq sooner rather than later. Will's main arguments are: 1. The past 6 1/2 years in Iraq have produced 4,327 American dead and 31,483 wounded 2. The US military is exhausted and needs a break 3. Afghanistan is spiralli

Max Boot: How to Win in Afghanistan

[Mr. Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author, most recently, of "War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today" (Gotham, 2006).] Given declining poll numbers and rising casualty figures, it is no surprise that the chattering classes are starting to bail out on a war in Afghanistan that was launched with their enthusiastic support. From Sen. Russ Feingold on the left to columnist George Will on the right, these bo

Geoffrey Nunberg: Google's Book Search: A Disaster for Scholars

[Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist, is an adjunct full professor at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley. Images of some of the errors discussed in this article can be found here.] Whether the Google books settlement passes muster with the U.S. District Court and the Justice Department, Google's book search is clearly on track to becoming the world's largest digital lib

John Steele Gordon: Eighty Years Ago Today

[John Steele Gordon was educated at Millbrook School and Vanderbilt University, graduating with a B.A. in history in 1966. He specializes in business and financial history. He has had articles published in, among others, Forbes, Forbes ASAP, Worth, the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal Op-Ed pages, the Washington Post's Book World and Outlook. He is a contributing editor at American Heritage, where he has written the "Business of America" column since 1989.] One o

Max Boot: British History No Guide in Afghanistan

[Mr. Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author, most recently, of"War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today" (Gotham, 2006).] David Ignatius resorts to history to suggest that we should limit our commitment in Afghanistan. He writes: Reading Afghan history is sobering, to put it mildly. Peter Hopkirk’s narrative “The Great Game” documents the inability of the British Empire, with all its troops, wea

Robert S. McElvaine: When Will GOP Leaders Denounce the Pyromaniacs?

[Historian Robert S. McElvaine is Elizabeth Chisholm Professor of Arts & Letters at Millsaps College & author of The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941 2009-04-15-TGD2.gif (Random House) and Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the "Forgotten Man" (North Carolina). His latest book is Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America 2008-07-01-GTJcoversm.jpg (Crown).] Threatening as they are, the fires burning around Los Angeles are not the mo

William Astore: American Militarism on Steroids

[William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), is a TomDispatch regular. He teaches History at the Pennsylvania College of Technology and can be reached at wastore@pct.edu.] I have a few confessions to make: After almost eight years of off-and-on war in Afghanistan and after more than six years of mayhem and death since"Mission Accomplished" was declared in Operation Iraqi Freedom, I'm tired of seeing simpleminded magnetic ribbons on vehicles telling me, a 20-year military ve

Victor Davis Hanson: War — What War?

[Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College.] The anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan headed to Martha's Vineyard this week, where President Ob

Jamie Glazov: Ayatollah Putin, an interview with Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy

[Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Russian, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He is the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union and is the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. His new book is United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email hi

Juan Cole: On How all Hell hasn't Broken out in Iraq and the US Military doesn't Need to Stay there

One of the major headlines out of Iraq today is the release of non-insurgent casualty figures for August, which are 456, as Agence France Presse reports. This was the highest monthly toll since July of 2008. I commend AFP on how it reported this story. Unlike a lot of other pieces, this one does not exaggerate the significance of August's figures and points out that there was also a surge of violence in June, when the US military was still largely in charge of security, and when 367 Iraqi civili

Daniel Pipes: Niqabs and Burqas - The Veiled Threat Continues

[Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.] What's new on the niqab and burqa front? To remind, both garments are designed for the modesty of Muslim females; the niqab covers all but the eyes and the burqa covers the entire face. In "Ban the Burqa – and the Niqab Too," two years ago, I documented how these two items pose criminal and terrorist dangers.

Julian E. Zelizer: Did Obama underestimate his critics?

[Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. His new book, "Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security -- From World War II to the War on Terrorism," will be published this fall by Basic Books. Zelizer writes widely about current events.] One of the great puzzles this summer has been why President Obama seemed to have underestimated the intensity of the counter-mobilization he would face in pr