Roundup: Historians' Take

Eric Foner: Obama's election means ...

MOST PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS do not fundamentally alter the American political landscape. Even when the party in power changes, the basic assumptions governing policy generally remain the same. But in a few critical elections, the advent of a new president is a transformative moment that reshapes American public life for a generation or more. Thomas Jefferson's victory in 1800 was a deathblow to the Federalist Party and its goal of wedding the young Republic to the interests of its f

Robert Dallek: Barack Obama will never become one of America’s forgotten presidents

[Robert Dallek is the author of several presidential studies, including books on John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and, most recently, Harry Truman.] In 1888, Republican Benjamin Harrison, who lost the popular vote to Grover Cleveland, but won the deciding electoral vote, declared that Providence had dictated his elevation to the highest office. Providence indeed, a Republican Party boss sniffed, confiding that the new president "would never know how man

Juan Cole: Obama and Iran

President-elect Barack Obama said Friday that"Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, I believe is unacceptable. . . Iran's support of terrorist organizations, I think is something that has to cease."What I cannot understand is why American politicians who speak publicly on this issue do not at least acknowledge that to the best information of the American intelligence community, Iran has no nuclear wea

Michael Levy: The Myth That Race Didn’t Matter

[Michael Levy is Britannica's Executive Editor. He received a bachelor’s degree (1991) in political science from the University of North Carolina and a doctorate (1996) in international relations and comparative politics from the University of Kentucky.] With Barack Obama carrying some 53% of the vote in Tuesday’s election and winning states that Republicans traditionally have won–particularly Virginia and

Norman Markowitz: Ten Truisms of Capitalism From the Mouths of Robber Barons

[Mr. Markowitz is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey and Contributing Editor to Political Affairs.] 1. "We are not in business for our health." A statement attributed to J. P. Morgan, when fellow parishioners in New York's Trinity Church criticized him for "investing" Church funds in lucrative East Side slum property. Capitalists have never been in business for anybody's health and today that is most evident for pharmaceutic

Jeremy Young: Communities of Rumor and the American Electorate

[Jeremy Young is a doctoral student in 20th-century U.S. history at Indiana University. He has been blogging for six years at a variety of locations around the web and is a writer for the History News Service.] I really can't understand people who look at Sarah Palin, who listen to her obvious incompetence, and see an inspiring leader and future President. Or people who felt the same way about George W. Bush in 2000. Or people who not only hate gay marriage, but honestly believe that it

Reidar Visser: The Obama Administration, Iraq, and the Question of Leverage

[Reidar Visser, research fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and member of the Gulf Research Unit at the University of Oslo, has a background in history and comparative politics (University of Bergen) and a doctorate in Middle Eastern studies (University of Oxford).] With Barack Obama’s victory in the American presidential elections there are expectations of changes in US policy in Iraq, involving a substantial reduction of force levels. In the so-called Obama&

Michael Lind: Obama and the dawn of the Fourth Republic

[Michael Lind is the Whitehead senior fellow at the New America Foundation and the author of The American Way of Strategy: U.S. Foreign Policy and the American Way of Life.] The election of Barack Obama to the presidency may signal more than the end of an era of Republican presidential dominance and conservative ideology. It may mark the beginning of a Fourth Republic of the United States. In the past generation Bruce Ackerman, Theodore Lowi and I, in different ways, ha

Simon Schama: Barack Obama recalls Abraham Lincoln as America revels in making history

[Simon Schama is a British professor of history and art history at Columbia University.] So by mid-morning in the capital there were no papers to be had: no Washington Post, no New York Times, no Chicago Tribune. By the time I was back in Union Station, all the vendors had to offer lying forlornly in their bins were copies of Investors' News and, believe me, no one was buying that item. America wanted to freeze-frame its moment of rebirth; wanted to have that headline

David Greenberg: Nothing's the Matter With Kansas

IN THE 24 hours since the networks declared Barack Obama the 44th president of the United States, one storyline has washed away all others: our joy, individual and collective, in the historic election of our first black president. Gone, suddenly, were all those campaign-trail arguments and analyses about which we spent untold hours typing out tortured email messages, half-baked blog posts, and bickering rejoinders. The swiftness with which this grand symbolic victory over race prejudice

David Greenberg: Landslide? Not Exactly

While 2008 represents an unmistakable repudiation of contemporary conservatism, Obama didn’t redraw the electoral map. The advent of America’s first black president inexorably calls forth the word historic. Uttered so frequently last evening, as it will be in the days ahead, the adjective would have been drained of meaning but for the palpable momentousness of Barack Obama’s election. Gone was the pretense of post-racialism; revealed was liberal America’s pride in the often-unsung p

Geoffrey Hosking: The 'credit crunch' and the importance of trust

[Geoffrey Hosking is a historian of Russia and the Soviet Union and formerly Leverhulme Research Professor of Russian History at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College, London. geoffreyhosking@mac.com.] The so-called 'credit crunch' which began in the summer of 2007 has now evolved into something altogether more significant and disturbing. A climax of sorts was reached on 7 September 2008, when Hank Paulson,

Victor Davis Hanson: Make Haste Slowly, President Obama

[Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.] Festina lente. Make haste slowly. That was the motto of the revolutionary minded young Augustus who soon grasped that he needed to build upon Rome's past, rather

Stanley Kutler: Bless Bush

[Stanley Kutler is the author of The Wars of Watergate, and other writings.] Just after midnight on election day the good folks in Dixville Notch, NH gave 15 votes for Barack Obama, while John McCain garnered only 6. Their first-in-the-nation vote told us what we needed to know and offered a portent for shifts across the country. George W. Bush won there decisively in 2004. Indeed, for the first time since 1968 - when they rejected Nixon (perhaps they really knew something) - the go

Edward J. Blum: Neither Christ Nor Antichrist ... A Reflection on the Election of Barack Obama

[Edward J. Blum is a historian of race and religion in the United States. He is the author of Reforging the White Republic (2005), W. E. B. Du Bois, American Prophet (2007), and co-editor of Vale of Tears: New Essays on Religion and Reconstruction. For these works, Blum was awarded the Peter Seaborg Award in Civil War Studies, the C. Vann Woodward Dissertation Prize, and was nominated for the Frederick Douglass Prize and the Bancroft Prize. He has been a fellow with the W. E. B. Du Bois Institut

Ruth Rosen: Dancing in the streets

[Ruth Rosen is Professor Emerita of History, U.C. Davis, and Visiting Professor of History, U.C. Berkeley.] The last time Americans danced and cheered in the streets was in 1945, when the nation finally defeated its enemies in the Second World War. I have no memories of those exuberant days. But I'm an historian and I've seen plenty of pictures and read many descriptions of the joy and happiness that swept over the country. Obama's stunning victory is the first time in

Juan Cole: Monsters on Television

Paul Krugman, among my favorite political commentators, has spoken forthrightly of how during the past few years we have had"monsters" in office, naming Tom Delay, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. He complains that until recently, if an observer simply called them what they are, he or she was termed"shrill." (h/t Daily Kos).I co

Timothy Garton Ash: I saw Americans dance with history, chanting 'Yes we can!' But can they?

[Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist.] To join that ebullient crowd in front of the White House shortly after midnight on Tuesday November 4 2008 was to dance with history. "Bush out now!" and "Goodbye, na na na na", they chanted, to the sound of drums. "Obama! Obama!" Car horns honked. A saxophone blared from the passenger window of a bright red pick-up truck. A young man beat a saucepan with a metal spoon. "

David Greenberg: McCain Ran the Sleaziest Campaign in History?

[David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers and author of three books of political history, has written the "History Lesson" column since 1998.] In the weeks before Election Day, we heard regularly that John McCain was running the sleaziest campaign in a generation, if not in American history. That claim might strike some as another case of journalistic weakness for hyperbole. After all, we've also heard claims that this was the most important ele

Gil Troy: Echoes of the ’60s and ’70s in yesterday’s choice of Obama

[Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University in Montreal and a Visiting Scholar affiliated with the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.] A voter fills out ballot at poll in Columbus, Ohio yesterday: The campaign might seem like a cakewalk compared with governing. Campaigns are social stress tests. U.S. presidential campaigns are regularly scheduled exercises highlighting the country’s social, cultural and political strengths and weaknesses. This year’s campaign -