Polls

HNN Poll: Could Iraq Cost Bush the Election?

Last week historian Allan Lichtman told USA Today that it's rare for a president to lose an election over an issue related to foreign policy. Lichtman, who's accurately predicted many presidential elections based on a careful analysis of the critical factors that shape American politics--factors he refers to as"keys"*--argued that Bush is favored to win re-election. He added, however,"it could become quicksand if anything happens to the economy. He has no cushion at this point."

HNN Poll: Predictions About Iraq

Last week HNN asked readers to predict the course a war with Iraq would take. Below are some of the responses we received as of Monday night, March 17, 2003.RONALD DALE KARRMr. Karr is the Reference Librarian, O'Leary Library, University of Massachusetts in Lowell. I predict that the Bush administration will conduct the war against Iraq and its aftermath at least as well

HNN Poll: Should the American Historical Association Stop Investigating Scholars Who Commit Fraud and Plagiarism?

by HNN Staff

On May 5, 2003 the American Historical Association (AHA) announced that it would no longer investigate charges of plagiarism and fraud leveled against historians. The organization explained that it"does not believe that the modest benefits to the profession justify the time, energy, and effort that have gone into the process." Some historians immediately denounced the decision, arguing that now more than ever--after Ambrose, Goo

The Frightening Agenda of the American Eugenics Movement

by Tony Platt

Following are the remarks Mr. Platt made to the California senate judiciary committee, June 24, 2003, regarding senate resolution no. 20 - relative to eugenics. Since the spring 2002, state governments in Virginia, Oregon, and South Carolina, have published statements of apology to tens of thousands of patients, mostly poor women, who were sterilized against their will in state hospitals between the 1900s and 1960s. In March 2003, Governor Davis and Attorney Ge

Poll: Who’s Your Favorite Founding Father?

by HNN Staff

We asked. You answered. Here's who you like. Frank McGrath George Washington could have been a perpetual President. If he had asked there is little doubt he would have been named President for Life. However, he well understood what the Revolution had been fought for. He would not assent to the throwing off of one monarchy to replace it with another. As the first President to voluntarily relinquish power after an el

Poll: Readers Sound Off About Joe Ellis's Suspension

by HNN Staff

Mount Holyoke has suspended Joseph Ellis without pay for a year and made him step down from his endowed chair"until such time as the trustees may wish to reinstate it." He gets to keep his library card. Reader comments:SPARE US THE MORAL OUTRAGE What an unquestioning bunch we are. Do we imagine that a Globe reporter was doing an investigation of Joseph Ellis's military background? Or is it more probable that someone in the profession had somehow been irked by Ellis, and had

9-11 Poll: The Historians' Perspective

by HNN Staff

Immediately after 9-11 HNN polled readers to find out their response. We received the following emails.NEITHER SURPRISED, NOR SHOCKED 9-13-01 How do we put the bombings in perspective? To read the press coverage of this event, we are all"shocked" and"surprised" by these attacks. They are"inconceivable." Well, the loss of life is horrifying and unjustifiable--the attacks have nothing to do with bringing justice for the Palestinians or anyone else--but these actions ar

Poll: The Coming Century

by HNN Staff

"The 20th century was the worst ever for mankind. The 21st century is going to be the best ever." -- Stephen Ambrose, August 2001, as quoted by the Lincoln Journal StarEditor's Note: This summer we polled half a dozen historians to find out what they thought would happen during the coming century. Their responses were scheduled to be published the

Poll: What Should We Do with Osama Bin Laden? (Part I)

by HNN Staff

Editor's Note James Sheehan, in a recent New York Times Book Review, reminded readers that"Winston Churchill had a simple solution to the problem of what to do with captured Nazi war leaders: as soon as their identities had been established by a senior officer, they should be taken out and shot, preferably within six hours." According to Sheehan,"The Soviets rejected this idea, not because they had any doubts about the guilt of the German elite and certainly not because they had

Poll: What Should We Do with Osama Bin Laden? Part II

by HNN Staff

Editor's Note James Sheehan, in a recent New York Times Book Review, reminded readers that"Winston Churchill had a simple solution to the problem of what to do with captured Nazi war leaders: as soon as their identities had been established by a senior officer, they should be taken out and shot, preferably within six hours." According to Sheehan,"The Soviets rejected this idea, not because they had any doubts about the guilt of the German elite and certainly not because they h

Poll: Is Stephen Ambrose a Serial Plagiarist?

by HNN Staff

Is the Ambrose story bigger than it appeared at first? Initially, Ambrose's chief offense seemed to be that he had simply forgotten to put quotation marks around a few select sentences. Now evidence is accumulating that he may be a serial plagiarist. The media have reported that he"borrowed" whole paragraphs from other authors in many books over a period of decades. Ambrose has apologized for misappropriating other peoples' words, but the practice apparently was deliberate. According

HNN Poll: This Has Been the Lowest Moment in the History of American Diplomacy Since ... ?

"There's a recognition this has not been our finest diplomatic hour," a diplomat has told the NYT. Even Republicans concede that American diplomacy has failed.

HNN Poll: Your Views on the War

HNN is setting aside this page to give readers an opportunity to provide running commentary on the war with Iraq, which began Wednesday night, March 19, 2003, just before President Bush addressed the country from the Oval Office at 10:15 PM EST.

HNN Poll: Did Historians Rush to Judgment?

HNN Readers' Predictions About the War Click here to find out what HNN readers thought would happen. HNN Quiz Read the excerpts below and then answer the following question:"In the second week of the war, when events did not go as the Pentagon had planned, some historians chastised the administration for failing to

HNN Poll: Why Did So Many People Hate Bill Clinton?

Why did Bill Clinton draw the hatred of millions of Americans? In his new book, The Clinton Wars, Sidney Blumenthal offers several reasons (outlined in the passage below). What do you think?From The Clinton Wars (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), pp. 49-50:[Bill] Clinton had all sorts of natural opponents, whose differences with him were based on their interests, partisan attachments, and professional work. But his clashes with them summon

HNN Poll: Was Iraq Looted?

Increasingly it appears that the initial media reports of massive looting at the Iraqi National Museum may have been misleading. Did the media err? Did historians overreact? From the Washington Post (June 9, 2003):The world was appalled. One archaeologist described the looting of Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities as "a rape of civilization." Iraqi scholars standing in the sacked galleries of the exhibit halls in April wept on cam

Is It "Worse than Watergate"?

On June 3, 2003 New York Times columnist Paul Krugman suggested that if it can be proven that the Bush administration knowingly lied about Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction,"the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in American political history." In this week's edition of HNN John Dean, the chief Watergate whistleblower, agrees. Do You?PAUL KRUGMANThe mystery of Iraq's mis

You Want Propaganda? Now This Is a Story About Propaganda

by Thomas Fleming

As the media becomes more and more pervasive in daily life, one of the fastest growing historical fields is the study of how certain nations or groups or individuals have manipulated the news for their own purposes. There are few better examples than the British and American demonization of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany before and during World War I.Wilhelm II was a juicy target. Before the war, Lord Northcliffe, the conservative British press lord, had regula

The Largest Covert Operation in CIA History

by Chalmers Johnson

The Central Intelligence Agency has an almost unblemished record of screwing up every "secret" armed intervention it ever undertook. From the overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953 through the Bay of Pigs, the failed attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro of Cuba and Patrice Lumumba of the Republic of Congo, the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, the "secret war" in Laos, aid to the Greek colonels who seized power in 1967, the 1973 killing of Salvador Allende in Chile

Was Lincoln Gay?

by W. Scott Thompson

What drives our great to greatness? We search, and find hope and humanity, unassuageably-remembered hunger, driving fear; but sometimes the mystery goes deeper to presiding emotions unmistakable in their power but strangely indeterminate in their form. In the present case Abe Lincoln passed from death into a demigod of national might and righteousness, and now makes him the canonic hero of liveliest sympathy and spiritual growth. And ne