Roundup: Historians' Take

Ruth Wisse: Bush Destroyed a Dictator. Clinton Installed One.

[Ms. Wisse, a professor of Yiddish and comparative literature at Harvard, is the author of "Jews and Power" (Schocken, 2007).] As President George W. Bush prepares to leave office amid a media chorus of reproach and derision, there is at least one comparison with his predecessor that speaks greatly in his favor. Mr. Bush removed the most ruthless dictator of his day, Saddam Hussein, thereby offering Iraqi citizens the possibility of self-rule. Bill Clinton's analogous achi

Catherine Allgor: Laura Bush ... The Legacy of a Lady

[Catherine Allgor is the Croul Visiting Professor of History at Claremont McKenna College and a writer for the History News Service. ] A week before the historic election of 2008, a small group of historians and journalists was invited to the White House to chat and lunch with First Lady Laura Bush. Organized by the Office of First Lady, this event was intended to unveil renovations made to the nation's house by Mrs. Bush. And as planned, Laura Bush gave a personal tour of the Lincoln

Julian Zelizer: On Frank Lambert's Religion in American Politics

[Julian E. Zelizer is professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is the co-editor of "Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s" (Harvard University Press) and is completing a book on the history of national security politics since World War II that will be published by Basic Books.] When Reverend Rick Warren handles the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration next week, the day after we celebrate Martin Lu

Tom Engelhardt: How to Turn Over a New Inaugural Leaf

[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 American Age of Denial. He also edited The World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire (Ver

Andreas Umland: Pipelines, Checks, and Balances

[Andreas Umland, Ph.D., of the Catholic University of Eichstaett-Ingolstad, Bavaria, is the editor of the book series “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society” and co-editor of the Russian web-journal "Forum for the Contemporary History and Culture of Eastern Europe.” He also administers the Web site “Russian Nationalism” which provides extensive up-to-date information on recent trends in Russian right-wing thought and politics.] It appears that in the near future, the Euro

Paul Kennedy: American Power Is on the Wane

[Mr. Kennedy, professor of history and director of International Security Studies at Yale University, is the author/editor of 19 books, including "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" (Vintage). He is currently writing an operational history of World War II.] As the world stumbles from the truly horrible year of 2008 into the very scary year of 2009, there seems, on the face of it, many reasons for the foes of America to think that the world's number one power will take

Kenneth Weisbrode: Historical Amnesia in West Opens Door to Risk

[Kenneth Weisbrode is the Vincent Wright Fellow in History at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.] ...One of the questions that historians may ask someday about the collapse of the short-lived post-Cold War order, such as it existed, is why the lessons of previous postwar experiences were not heeded more closely. In European history, at least, the lessons are driven into the heads of every schoolchild: The Thirty Years' War and the subsequent Treaty of Westphalia

Andrew Roberts: History will show that George W Bush was right

[Andrew Roberts's 'Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West' is published by Penguin.] The American lady who called to see if I would appear on her radio programme was specific. "We're setting up a debate," she said sweetly, "and we want to know from your perspective as a historian whether George W Bush was the worst president of the 20th century, or might he be the worst president in American history?"

Robert Bellah: This is our moment, this is our time

[Robert Neelly Bellah is an American sociologist and educator, who for 30 years served as professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley. His books on the sociology of religion include Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditional World (1970), The Broken Covenant (1975), Habits of the Heart (1985), and The Good Society (1991). In 2000, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Clinton.] For a long time after November 4, I found it hard to beli

Daniel Pipes: Muslim Autonomous Zones in the West?

In"Europe's Stark Options," I considered the future of the Muslim-European encounter and conclude there are three possible futures,"harmonious integration, the expulsion of Muslims, or an Islamic takeover." I then dismissed the first as unrealistic and stated that it is too early to predict which of the latter two unattractive possibilities will come to pass.A reader, Chris Slater of Upper Hutt, New Zealand,

Geoffrey Wheatcroft: How Israel gets away with murder

When Lord Derby asked Sir Lewis Namier, the great historian of Georgian England, why he, as a Jew, didn't write Jewish history, Namier replied: "There is no modern Jewish history, only a Jewish martyrology, and that is not amusing enough for me." It might be said that the underlying purpose of the Zionist project – which Namier passionately supported – was to reject Jewish martyrology, and to turn the Jews from passive victims to active makers of their destiny. That has be

Alan Brinkley: The personality flaw that's made Bush one of the worst presidents ever

[Alan Brinkley is provost and Allan Nevins Professor of History at Columbia.] We are less than two weeks away from the end of the Bush era, but it is not too early to assess how this important presidency went so disastrously wrong. There are already shelves full of books criticizing Bush and his administration, and there will undoubtedly be more as records become available to reveal what will almost certainly be a generation's worth of damage that we have not yet even recognized. Bu

Timothy Stewart-Winter: Putting Obama's questionnaire in context

[Timothy Stewart-Winter is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Chicago, writing his dissertation on lesbian and gay politics in Chicago.] In this issue of the Windy City Times, the world learns for the first time that almost thirteen years ago, during his first campaign for office, Barack Obama answered a questionnaire with the phrase, “I favor legalizing same-sex mar

Mark Beeson: After American Hegemony ... East Asian Regionalism and the End of the Asia-Pacific

[Mark Beeson is Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science & International Studies, The University of Birmingham.] The economic crisis that currently grips the world will have many consequences, not least for the US. A decade ago during the East Asian crisis, the US lectured East Asian elites on the shortcomings of ‘crony capitalism’ and close business relationships. Such claims look bizarrely anachronistic as the US government finds itself having to nationalise o

Jeffrey Wasserstrom: The Year China Jumped the Gun

[Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine. He is co-founder and regular contributer to The China Beat: Blogging How the East is Read. His books include China's Brave New World (2007) and Global Shanghai, 1850-2010.] What's in store for China in 2009? If you'd asked me this question a year ago, my answer would have pivoted around the fact that several important round-number anniversaries will occur in a place where such dat

John Stauffer: What Obama Can Learn from Lincoln's Inaugural

[John Stauffer is Chair of History of American Civilization at Harvard University and the author, most recently, of GIANTS: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (TWELVE).] Over the past three years, Americans have witnessed Barack Obama's affection for, and occasional obsession with, Abraham Lincoln. He launched his presidential campaign in Lincoln's hometown, has made frequent pilgrimages to the Lincoln Memorial, and quotes or paraphrases Lincoln in most of

Jonathan Zimmerman: Do opinion pieces ever change your opinion?

[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.] Right on, Professor Zimmerman! Keep up the great work! Wrong again, Professor Zimmerman! Get a real job! Welcome to the wacky and wonderful world of op-ed writing. For the past decade, I've published two opinion pieces a month in newspapers around the country. Thanks

N. Gregory Mankiw: Is Government Spending Too Easy an Answer?

[N. Gregory Mankiw is a professor of economics at Harvard. He was an adviser to President Bush.] ... Economics textbooks, including Mr. Samuelson’s and my own more recent contribution, teach that each dollar of government spending can increase the nation’s gross domestic product by more than a dollar. When higher government spending increases G.D.P., consumers respond to the extra income they earn by spending more themselves. Higher consumer spending expands aggregate demand further

Jim Sleeper: How Dysfunctional is Israel?

One night in the 1960s, drunken teenagers in Palmer, Massachusetts decided to spook kids at a Jewish, Hebrew-speaking summer camp. They hurled bottles and catcalls, terrifying 12-year olds in their beds. Two Israeli camp counselors raced into the woods like raging bulls, intending to give the townies more than an escort to the local cops. They didn't catch them, but they set up martial patrols, scaring the campers as much as the rowdies, who never returned.I am not telling this story t

Mark Naison: A Plea for New Leadership-And Non Violent Solutions-In the Middle East

[Mark Naison is Professor of African American Studies and History, Fordham University.] The carnage in Gaza produced by Israeli bombs and mortars, has left many people around the world, including this writer, thoroughly disillusioned with Israel and its leaders. The disproportionate infliction of suffering on the residents of Gaza, relative to the victims of Hamas rocket attacks in Israeli towns and cities, suggests that there are no limits to the violence Israel will use to pro