Roundup: Historians' Take

Steve Fraser: How Popular Anger Grew, 1929 and 2009

[Steve Fraser is a visiting professor at New York University, co-founder of the American Empire Project, and the author, most recently, of Wall Street: America's Dream Palace.] Obtuse hardly does justice to the social stupidity of our late, unlamented financial overlords. John Thain of Merrill Lynch and

Andreas Umland: Are We Witnessing the Beginning of a New Russian Thaw? Medvedev Meets "Novaya gazeta" Editor

When Vladimir Putin nominated Dmitry Medvedev for becoming Putin's successor as President of the Russian Federation on December 10, 2008, Western observers reacted with relief. Medvedev was the best possible candidate, in Putin's entourage, and the West's preferred choice as a future partner in negotiations – at least, given the alternatives to Medvedev, in the Russian leadership. At the same time, most pundits, in both Russia and the West, were sceptical concerning not only the actual prerogati

Richard Reeves: Missile Gaps and Other Broken Promises

On the morning of his 17th day as President, John F. Kennedy was still in bed at 8 a.m. and, as was his habit, reading The New York Times. One glance at the front page and he exploded, calling his Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara and saying: “What the hell is this ….” “This” was a headline: “Kennedy Defense Study Finds No Evidence of a ‘Missile Gap.’ ” Not good. Kennedy’s most powerful campaign line had been: “We are facing a gap on which we are gambling with our s

Julian Zelizer: Helping Groups to Help Themselves

[Mr. Zelizer teaches history at Princeton.] Americans have compared our current political situation to the New Deal from almost every possible angle. There is one component to the New Deal, however, that has been downplayed in public discussion. That is the theme of countervailing power. Rauchway devotes a chapter to this subject, building on an argument developed by John Kenneth Galbraith in the 1950s. Galbraith and Rauchway argue that one of the most important contrib

Christopher Phelps: Which New Deal approaches are worth emulating?

[Christopher Phelps, associate professor of history at Ohio State University at Mansfield, has written extensively on intellectuals and politics in the 1930s. He is author of Young Sidney Hook (second edition, University of Michigan Press, 2005) and editor of Max Shachtman's 1933 text Race and Revolution (Verso, 2003).] His oratorical gifts draw comparisons with Martin Luther King Jr. His youthfulness and liberal centrism are reminiscent of John F. Kennedy. His hope is akin to Ronal

Jerry Z. Muller: Our Epistemological Depression

[Jerry Z. Muller is a history professor at The Catholic University of America and the author of “The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Modern European Thought” (2002). His course “Thinking about Capitalism” has just been released by The Teaching Company.] The history of socialism is the history of failure—and so is the history of capitalism, but in a different sense. For the history of socialism is one of fundamental failure, a failure to provide incentives and an inability to coor

Julian Zelizer: Obama's 100 days of problems?

[ulian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is completing a book on the history of national security politics since World War II, to be published by Basic Books. Zelizer writes widely on current events.] Tomorrow marks the end of the third week of President Barack Obama's Hundred Days. After what can only be described as a euphoric inauguration, Obama has encountered some trouble. Despite his effort

Michael Kazin: A Liberal Revival of Americanism

[Michael Kazin's latest book is "A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan." He teaches history at Georgetown University.] Barack Obama's rise to power has, to many people's surprise, once again made patriotism a liberal faith. At the pre-inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial, "This Land Is Your Land," lustily rendered by Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen, shared equal billing with "The Star-Spangled Banner." In his inaugural address, the new

Alan Brinkley: Railing Against the Rich ... A Great American Tradition

[Alan Brinkley is the Allan Nevins professor of history and the provost at Columbia University.] The Great Depression of the 1930s created hardship and suffering among millions of Americans. It also created populist resentment of elites. Among the many signs of this anger was the astonishing popularity of Huey P. Long, governor of Louisiana and then U.S. senator, a figure so dominant in his own state that his enemies called him a dictator. But to the ordinary people of Louisiana --

Mark Naison: Did FDR's Jobs and Spending Programs Make the Depression Worse?

[Mark Naison is Professor of African American Studies and History, Fordham University.] During the debate on President Obama's stimulus package, I was astonished to hear Republican Congressional leaders argue that history shows us that massive government spending programs make economic crises worse. As an example, they invoke the jobs and public works programs of the Roosevelt Administration, which, they claim, lenththened the Depression rather than ameliorated its impact.

Niall Ferguson: Keynes can't help us now

[Niall Ferguson is a professor at Harvard University and Harvard Business School, a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution. His latest book is "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World."] ... There is something desperate about the way economists are clinging to their dogeared copies of Keynes' "General Theory." Uneasily aware that their discipline almost entirely failed to anticipate the current crisis, they se

Melvin I. Urofsky: Obama should follow Brandeis's advice to Woodrow Wilson and FDR

[Melvin I. Urofsky is a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of the forthcoming “Louis D. Brandeis: A Life.”] SOME things never change. When President Obama spoke last week of “shameful” bonuses for bankers and the financial community’s “irresponsibility,” he echoed charges leveled nearly a century ago by Louis D. Brandeis. Brandeis, a commercial lawyer, leading reformer and future Supreme Court justice, described a dangerous combination of avarice, lack of a

Philip Brenner and Saul Landau: Farewell, Monroe Doctrine

[Philip Brenner is a professor of international relations at American University. His most recent book is A Contemporary Cuba Reader (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008). Saul Landau is vice chair of the Institute for Policy Studies board of trustees. His most recent film is "We Don't Play Golf Here — and Other Stories of Globalization." They are Foreign Policy In Focus contributors.] President Barack Obama could swiftly improve U.S. relations with Latin America by announcing th

Tom Engelhardt: Whistling Past the Afghan Graveyard

[Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com, is the co-founder of the American Empire Project. His book, The End of Victory Culture (University of Massachusetts Press), has just been thoroughly updated in a newly issued edition that deals with victory culture's crash-and-burn sequel in Iraq.] It is now a commonplace -- as a lead

Joseph Lane: Being President and Saying "I'm Sorry": Obama's Mea Culpa

[Joseph Lane is the Hawthorne Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Emory & Henry.] You can stop the watch: the time from his inauguration to President Obama’s first mea culpa clocked in at exactly two weeks.He did not leave anything to chance, taking responsibility on the evening news with all the major network news anchors, and doing so repeatedly.Of course, Presi

Jonathan Zimmerman: On Uncle Sam's role in public schools, Republicans have it backwards

[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.] Hey, look out for the Big Bad Federal Government! It's coming soon, to build a school near you. That's what Republicans are saying about President Obama's stimulus plan, which includes $20 billion for school building and renovation. Throughout American history, the st

Deborah Lipstadt: Double Disaster at the Vatican ... Indepth Analysis

[Ms. Lipstadt is Dorot professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies and director of the Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University.] There are two in depth analyses of the Vatican situation, one in the New York Times, which discusses how the reinstatement of the SSPX by the Vatican exposes deep divisions within the Vatican.In addition Sandro Magister, a correspondent for the weekly magazine L&

Roger Morris: The President Behind the Mask

In the political sense, Barack Obama came out of nowhere — and both his Democratic primary opponents and John McCain in the general election tried to persuade voters of the risks of electing someone with so sparse a past, telling them that “we don’t know who he is!” This raises a bigger question: how well do we really “know” any politician, no matter how long he’s been in the public eye? History holds a cautionary lesson. Barack Obama is an unknown quantity. But so, aft

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: 10 Things That Obama Should Do (To Prepare for Going to Beijing)

[Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, the Editor of the Journal of Asian Studies, and the author, most recently, of Global Shanghai, 1850-2010: A History in Fragments (2008).] No, there hasn't been any indication that the new President will be heading to China anytime soon, though it does seem likely that Hilary Clinton will make it there during her first tri

Carmen M. Reinhart And Kenneth S. Rogoff: The lesson of history is grim: Expect a prolonged slump.

[Ms. Reinhart is professor of economics at the University of Maryland. Mr. Rogoff is professor of economics at Harvard and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.] Perhaps the Obama administration will be able to bring a surprisingly early end to the ongoing U.S. financial crisis. We hope so, but it is not going to be easy. Until now, the U.S. economy has been driving straight down the tracks of past severe financial crises, at least according to a variety of stan