Roundup: Historians' Take

Robert Gellately: Is Another Hitler Possible?

[Robert Gellately's most recent book is Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe, published by Alfred A. Knopf and Vintage Books. He teaches history at Florida State University.] Adolf Hitler was born 120 years ago on April 20, 1889. Is another Hitler possible? I was recently asked that question in connection with my research into the social catastrophe that swept Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. I started to think about Hitler's improbable rise fro

Louis Warren: How We Got Here ... Thoughts on the State of California

[Mr. Warren is a professor of history at UC Davis and guest blogger at Edge of the American West.] While the scolding and the tut-tutting goes viral — “California, such a shame those weird, flaky people can’t live within their means” — it’s time for some serious reflection about how the nation’s richest, most populous state got where it is. California, home to one in eight Americans, has a GDP bigger than Canada’s. And it’s in the middle of an on-going fiscal calamity which threatens to r

Tom Engelhardt: Six Ways the Af-Pak War Is Expanding

[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. He also edited

Daniel Pipes: A History of Muslim Terrorism against Jews in the United States

The arrest yesterday of four would-be jihadis before they could attack two synagogues in New York City brings to mind a long list of terrorist assaults in the United States by Muslims on Jews. These began in 1977 and have continued regularly since, as suggested by the following list of major incidents (ignoring lesser ones that did damage only to property, such a series of attacks on Chicago-area synagogues):March 1977: Hanafi Muslims seized thre

Priya Satia: The shadow of history passes over Pakistan

[The writer is assistant professor of modern British history at Stanford University. Her book, Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain's Covert Empire in the Middle East, was published by Oxford University Press last year.] As Pakistan spirals out of its grasp, the Obama administration is at last considering halt ting drone attacks there. Influential military officials such as Colonel David Kilcullen, a former adviser to General David Petraeus in Iraq,

Julian E. Zelizer: Democrats play defense on security

[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.] (CNN) -- President Obama has been struggling to get things right on national security. The president has not displayed the same kind of poise and confidence

John Steele Gordon: Why Government Can't Run a Business

[Mr. Gordon is the author of "An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power" (HarperCollins, 2004). ] The Obama administration is bent on becoming a major player in -- if not taking over entirely -- America's health-care, automobile and banking industries. Before that happens, it might be a good idea to look at the government's track record in running economic enterprises. It is terrible. In 1913, for instance, thinking it was being overchar

Simon Schama: America’s phobia of banks

[Simon Schama is the author of ‘The American Future’ (Bodley Head) and a contributing editor of the FT] Unaccustomed as they are to being told to stand in the corner wearing dunces’ hats, American bankers, so it’s been reported, are getting grouchy about the “stress tests” inflicted on them by the Treasury as a condition of receiving bail-out funds. They have, it’s rumoured, been “pushing back” against restrictions on executive pay. Beggars, it seems, can be choosers. But before the

Daniel Pipes: Obama and Netanyahu Meet ... What's Next?

[Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his blog.] The meeting on May 18 of two newly elected leaders, Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu, raises a basic question about U.S.-Israel relations: Will this long-standing alliance survive its 62nd year?Here are three reasons to expect a break from business-as-u

Martin van Creveld: Obama should follow Carter's example on Middle East

[Martin van Creveld is professor of military history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the author of many works on military history and strategy. Global Viewpoint/Tribune Media Services.] The U.S. president who did most for Israel was not Harry Truman, who recognized the Jewish state almost immediately after it was founded. Nor was it John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon. Or Gerald Ford, or Ronald Reagan, or the two George Bushes, or Bill Clinton, though all of these pr

Jonathan Zimmerman: Our tattoos, ourselves

[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. His next book, "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory," will be published in June.] Our daughter wants a tattoo. Nothing big or gaudy, she assures us. And not right away, either. She's still in high school, after all, and she knows we won't allow it. But once she's gone, there's a good chance she'll get one. Ditto for your own daughter,

Stanley I. Kutler: Obama’s Coalition of the Unwilling

[Stanley Kutler is the author of “The Wars of Watergate” and other writings.] President Barack Obama dramatically changed course twice on May 13 when he announced he would not release photos of American military personnel “abusing” detainees, reversing the Pentagon’s statement on April 26 that it would comply with a court order – with the president’s own prompt and emphatic support for release. And thus the second reversal: the president would “do business” in Washington in the “old

Warren Kozak: Curtis LeMay and the Tragedy of War

[ Mr. Kozak is the author of the just published "LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay" (Regnery). ] ... In peacetime, a country can deliberate the balance of its security and civil liberties. It can even apologize for actions that were clearly wrong. When a nation is in peril, however, a forceful defense takes priority. Following Pearl Harbor, this country asked its military leaders to commit acts that, when taken out of context, can be viewed as

Andrew Roberts: How Torture Helped Win WWII

[Historian Andrew Roberts' latest book, Masters and Commanders, was published in the U.K. in September. His previous books include Napoleon and Wellington, Hitler and Churchill, and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900. Roberts is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts.] A slight air of unreality has permeated the debate over “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the war against terror, with historians embarrassedly studying their

Spencer Dew: Pigs, Plagues, Politics, and Religion

[Spencer Dew is a PhD candidate in Religion and Literature at the University of Chicago Divinity School.] In the last few weeks, fear of a swine flu pandemic temporarily closed churches in Mexico and altered liturgies in the United States, with some parishes cancelling the “passing of the peace” or performing Eucharist without a common cup. In a “precautionary” measure, 300,000 pigs were slaughtered in Egypt, while the Taiwanese Tzu Chi Foundation interpreted this disease as yet an

Jeff Wasserstrom: World Expos have been a snooze in the West for decades. But China's first one ever next year will be a wake-up call

[Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is a professor of history at the University of California at Irvine. He is the author of "China's Brave New World—And Other Tales for Global Times." ] Hosting a world expo was once a big deal. From London in 1851 to Chicago in 1893, these fairs put cities at the center of the world stage, just as Olympics and world cups do today. But today, within the West, the expo is the Rodney Dangerfield of major events. One reason they "don't

Juan Cole: Obama Reversal on Torture Photos ... Is He Afraid they would Destabilize Iraq?

[Mr. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. His website is http://www.juancole.com.] President Obama has reversed himself on his earlier determination not to oppose a ruling by a Federal judge that remaining photos of the torture and abuse of prisoners by the US military in Iraq.

Manan Ahmed: Pakistan as a failed state ... an old meme

[Manan Ahmed, a historian of Islam in South Asia at the University of Chicago, blogs at Chapati Mystery.] Times are bleak for the state of Pakistan, if the international media is to be believed. For the past six weeks, the world’s newspapers have charted the apparently unstoppable march of the Taliban toward Islamabad – with daily reminders that their forces are “only 100 miles” and then “only 80 miles” and then “only 60 miles” from the capital. That Pakistan is a “failed state” or

Juan Cole: The hidden hand of Dick Cheney

Dick Cheney is out there. He is defending torture, dissing Colin Powell, and genuflecting before radio personality Rush Limbaugh as the high priest of what's left of conservatism. His refusal to go quietly, unlike his much-reviled boss, is risky. He was a laugh line more than once at Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner. But the media's focus on the sheer spectacle of the ex-veep's antics, and on the Republican vs. Democrat feud he's stoking, underestimates the way Cheney'

Mark Naison: For Most Americans, The Worst Consequences of The Economic Crisis Are Yet To Come

[Mark Naison is Professor of African American Studies and History, Fordham University.] If you read the newspapers, watch the news, and search the internet, you will get the impression that the global recession is easing and may soon "bottom out." The Obama Administration's stimulus package, coupled with a infusion of funds into the banking system by TARP and the Federal Reserve, has at least temporatily, prevented the nation's largest banks from going under and helped sta