Roundup: Talking About History

Knute Berger: Indiana Jones, meth addict

The artifact landscape has changed. Hunting for arrowheads, Indian tools, and old-time treasures is not only politically incorrect but often illegal. Time was when a fairly casual stroll along a river or on a beach or through the forest could produce all kinds of finds which people didn't think twice about pocketing. Back in the late 1980s, I visited the home of an old-timer on Alki Point, and on one wall of his cabin was a museum-quality display of Clovis spear points. I envied the days

Steven Plaut: Putting the Oy Back into 'Ahoy'

[Steven Plaut, a professor at Haifa University, is a frequent contributor to The Jewish Press. His book "The Scout" is available at Amazon.com. He can be contacted at steveneplaut@yahoo.com.] They did not sing "Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Manischewitz," nor do they ever seem to appear in any of the Disney films about pirates in the Caribbean. The website piratesinfo.com carries not a single reference to them.

Roy Hattersley: Don't mess with Iceland

[Roy Hattersley is a Guardian columnist. He served in Jim Callaghan's cabinet and later became deputy leader of the Labour party.] Our cause is just. But so it was in 1975, when Iceland decided - unilaterally and illegally - to create an "exclusion zone" around its coast. Foreign trawlers were forbidden to fish within its boundaries. When Grimsby skippers ignored the edict, Icelandic gunboats severed the cables which connected boats to nets - risking fi

Stanislav Mishin: Bush has reached two great accomplishments

[Stanislav Mishin is a blogger.] Many of Bush’s critics have voiced the opinion that Bush’s presidency has accomplished nothing and has resulted in only failures. I disagree. Quite frankly, Bush and his Neocon enablers and world wide puppets have reached two milestones previously believed unreachable. The most interesting point of both is that they were reached with little conscious thought. In the US there is a word that was coined specifically for the 911 and Afghani

Tony Perrottet: The trashing of the White House that was Andrew Jackson's inauguration

[Tony Perrottet's new book, Napoleon's Privates: 2,500 Years of History Unzipped, is a literary version of a Cabinet of Curiosities (HarperCollins, July, 2008; napoleonsprivates.com). He is also the author of Pagan Holiday: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists and The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Ancient Games.] The most riotous party scene in the U.S. political arena occurred when the war hero Andrew Jackson, considered a country bumpkin by many a patrician Easterner, ar

John O'Sullivan: On the fortieth anniversary of the Prague Spring

[O'Sullivan was educated at London University and stood for Parliament as a Conservative in the 1970 general election for Gateshead West. He is the founder and co-chairman of the New Atlantic Initiative, an international bipartisan effort dedicated to reinvigorating and expanding the Atlantic community of democracies. The NAI was formally launched at the Congress of Prague in May 1996 by President Vaclav Havel and Lady Thatcher.] Under the glowering gaze of the National Museum at

Will Ross: Free Guinea's 50 years of poverty

[Will Ross is a BBC reporter.] This week marks the 50th anniversary of independence for the West African state of Guinea, but as Will Ross reports there is little to celebrate with the country in political and economic turmoil. Without knowing it I was standing in the same room as General Charles de Gaulle and Guinea's independence leader Sekou Toure. Except I was 50 years late. The building where journalists apply for accreditation, is where the French p

Tim Egan: Bush's legacy

Among the many dispiriting things to come out of Bob Woodward’s quartet of books on George W. Bush is his observation that the president has not changed since he first started talking to Woodward in 2001. No growth. No evolution. No regrets. “History,” Bush replied, when asked by Woodward how he would be judged over time. “We don’t know. We’ll all be dead.” Broke, as well. It would have been nice to let Bush’s two terms marinate a while before invoking Herb

Charlotte Higgins: Ancient Greece's influence surrounds us

[Charlotte Higgins is the author of It's All Greek to Me.] Zeus once let fly two eagles from the ends of the world: one from the east and one from the west. They soared high over oceans, mountains, forests and plains, until they met at the very centre of the earth, its omphalos, or navel. On this spot, a temple to Apollo was dedicated, the home of the Delphic oracle, where those who wished for insight into their past, present or future might come to consult the god. The questioner w

Roy and Lesley Adkins: To mark his 250th birthday, two historians single out the 10 best Nelson books

[Roy and Lesley Adkins are authors of history and archaeology books.] Roy and Lesley Adkins's many books include Trafalgar, which tells the story of the war at sea in Napoleonic times, and their latest book Jack Tar, looking at life in the navy in Nelson's era. "Vice-admiral Lord Horatio Nelson was perhaps the ultimate tragic hero, who died in his hour of triumph at the Battle of Trafalgar (October 21 1805). He held the position of national hero throughout the 19th

John Taylor: Nixon Thought The ‘60 Debate Didn’t Matter

Leading up to tonight’s debate, articles and blog posts too numerous to count have repeated the accepted wisdom that Richard Nixon lost in 1960 for one reason: Because he performed poorly– or, rather, looked unwell — in the first of his debates with John F. Kennedy.The folks at Gallup aren’t quite as definitive in their view:Gallup t

Roger Pulvers: Talking of fanatics, careerists, cynics and true believers . . . What Georgi Arbatov saw

"We're doing the worst thing to you: We're depriving you of an enemy." So spoke Georgi Arbatov to American journalists in the 1980s, when his country, the Soviet Union, was going through the throes of perestroika (restructuring and reforming). Arbatov, founder of the USA and Canadian Institute in Moscow, adviser to Soviet leaders Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Mikhail Gorbachev, and confidant, throughout his long career, to a gamut of figures from German Chancellor Wil

Nigel Paterson: Riding the Caspian Sea Monster

[Was it a boat? Was it a plane? A bit of both in fact. The Ekranoplan was one of the more obscure products of the fight for technological supremacy in the Cold War. Nigel Paterson, who joined Top Gear presenter James May for a test "flight", recounts its secret history.] In September 1966 an American spy satellite flew over a Soviet naval base on the Caspian Sea and took a series of photographs. This being the height of the Cold War, the results created quite a stir among

Glenn Ricketts: Why aren't there history scholarships?

Yes, yes, we know that you’ve been an outstanding high school history student and that you’d like to major in that subject in college, but we’re not sure why you’re inquiring about scholarships here. Wait, not so fast: it’s certainly impressive that you’ve had some original research published, and your grades are indeed outstanding. But if, as you say, you’re looking for a scholarship, we’d like to hear about your curve ball. Oh, you didn’t play baseball in high school? Well, then how about foot

Max Holland: The Secret That Wasn’t ... Deep Throat Exposed in 1973

Of all the legends about Watergate, perhaps the most enduring is that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein religiously protected the identity of W. Mark Felt, aka “Deep Throat.” In fact, they did more to expose their fabled secret source than has ever been appreciated. One big fat clue escaped all notice during the many years of guessing. It appeared in The Washington Post on June 17, 1973, a year to the day after the break-in and 10 months before Woodward and Bernstein’s 1974 best-s

Martin Peretz: The Rosenberg bombshell

[Martin Peretz is the editor-in-chief of The New Republic.] ... There is a whole culture in America that has believed the innocence of the Rosenbergs as doctrine and dogma. The texts of this culture are not scrupulous histories because such histories would undermine its beliefs. They are, instead, one novel and one play, fiction being more amenable to false history, both these cases being tales of the Rosenbergs' innocence. The narrative is E.L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel, a best

Sandro Magister: The Two Sides of Pacelli. Courageous as Pope, Too Cautious as Secretary of State

Receiving the representatives of the Jewish foundation Pave the Way – in Rome for a symposium on Pius XII – last Thursday Benedict XVI expressed a very positive view of the figure and work of Pope Eugenio Pacelli, and especially about what he did "to save the Jews persecuted by the Nazi and Fascist regimes." This is the first time that Joseph Ratzinger, as pope, has spoken out so directly about his great and controversial predecessor. He will speak about him again next Oc

Larry Schweikart: Alger Hiss ... Guilty Except in History Books

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Larry Schweikart, a professor of history at the University of Dayton. He is the co-author with Michael Allen of the best-selling book, A Patriot’s History of the United States. His follow-up book, America’s Victories, led President Bush to invite him to the Oval Office for a discussion of history. His new book is 48 Liberal Lies About American History. FP: Larry Schweikart, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Schweikart: Hello agai

Larry Franklin: 9/11? Understanding the enemy

[Larry Franklin, a counterterrorism specialist and an Air Force colonel, served as Iran desk officer in the office of the Secretary of Defense.] ‘The Building which they built will never cease to be a cause of hypocrisy and doubt in their hearts, unless their hearts are cut to pieces. And Allah is all-Knowing, All Wise. Verily, Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their properties; for a price, for theirs shall be Paradise. They fight in Allah’s cause, so they kill

Richard Dowden: Future uncertain as curtain falls on South Africa's Julius Caesar

[Richard Dowden is director of the Royal African Society. His book Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles is published by Portobello Books.] His voice shaking, Thabo Mbeki bid farewell to the presidency and the people of South Africa on Sunday, saying thank you in eight of the country's official languages. A personal tragedy for the President, it may prove a momentous turning point, Shakespearean in its grand political drama and flawed personalities. Coriolanus - th