Roundup: Talking About History

Cahal Milmo: A cure for flu (from beyond the grave)

[Cahal Milmo has written articles published in The Independent (Chief Reporter).] Eighty-nine years after he died in a flu pandemic, the body of Sir Mark Sykes was dug up last week – in the hope that his uniquely preserved remains may help provide a weapon against the killer virus. At a solemn service before sunset in a rural Yorkshire churchyard eight days ago, a battered lead-lined coffin was reburied hours after being opened for the first time in 89 years. As prayers

Hadley Nagel: Why we should remember Madison's presidency's bicentennial

[Hadley Nagel, founder of Americans For Madison, is a senior at the Nightingale-Bamford School in New York City, a member of the American Historical Association, contributor to The Concord Review and a columnist for Scoop08.] While Americans are focused on the 2008 Presidential election, it is important to note that this year also marks the bicentennial of James Madison's election as the fourth President of the United States of America. There are interesting parallels between the two

David A. Andelman: A riposte to historians who disrespect journalism

If there’s a choice between historians and journalists as chroniclers of contemporary history, historians win hands down—at least at the Harvard University Library. Earlier this month, there appeared in my mailbox in New York City what seemed like an interesting white paper, “The Research Library in the Digital Age.” It was written by Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer university professor and director of the Harvard University Library, and was forwarded to me by Frances D. Fergus

James Delingpole: John Lorimer on the 65th anniversary of the submarine raid on the Tirpitz

[James Delingpole writes regularly for the Times, Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph.] Sunday marks the 65th anniversary of the midget submarine raid on the Tirpitz, one of the most courageous acts of the Second World War. James Delingpole meets surviving hero Commander John Lorimer. 'I had BBC Scotland round again the other day. Fourth bloody time they've been. I said: 'The only reason you want to talk to me is I because I won't be alive much longer…'"

R.J. Stove: Court Historan ... Andrew Roberts and the Bush presidency

[R.J. Stove is a Contributing Editor at The American Conservative.] Connoisseurs of homicidal book reviews have long treasured the virtuosic evisceration that British immunologist Sir Peter Medawar performed in 1950 on Teilhard de Chardin, that once fashionable Gallic mountebank. Of Teilhard’s The Phenomenon of Man, Medawar remarked, “its author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others he has taken great pains to deceive himself.” Si

Yassin Musharbash: Did Muhammad Ever Really Live? (Interview)

[Yassin Musharbash is a Jordanian-born German journalist.] A number of Islamic associations have put a quick end to their collaboration with a professor -- and trainer of people who are supposed to teach Islam in German high schools -- who has expressed his doubt that Muhammad ever lived. Islam scholar Michael Marx spoke with SPIEGEL ONLINE about what lies behind the debate and the historical person of the Prophet. SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Marx, someone studying Islam learns

Ronald Radosh: Case closed ... The Rosenbergs were Soviet spies

[Ronald Radosh is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the coauthor of "The Rosenberg File."] Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed 55 years ago, on June 19, 1953. But last week, they were back in the headlines when Morton Sobell, the co-defendant in their famous espionage trial, finally admitted that he and his friend, Julius, had both been Soviet agents. It was a stunning admission; Sobell, now 91 years old, had adamantly maintained his in

Mark R. Hatlie: Medieval analogies in policy discourse and the role of historians

[Mark R. Hatlie is an American who has been living in Old Europe for over 18 years. A native of California, he studied at New Mexico Military Institute in New Mexico, St. Olaf College in Minnesota, and at the Universities of Konstanz and Tübingen in Germany. He has done historical research in the United States, Germany, Latvia and Russia and currently teaches for the University of Maryland University College and the American Public University System.] The most recent issue of the

Richard Owen: How the barbarians drove Romans to build Venice

[Richard Owen has written articles published in The Times (Rome correspondent) and The Sunday Times.] The hidden ruins of an ancient lagoon city that was the ancestor of Venice have been unearthed by scientists using satellite imaging. The outlines are clearly visible about three feet below the earth in what is now open countryside. Venice was a powerful maritime power during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It seemed, however, an unlikely spot to choose for a lead

Paul Geitner: Spanish town still haunted by its brush with Armageddon

[Paul Geitner is a journalist.] The rest of the world has mostly forgotten, but the brush with nuclear Armageddon is seared on the minds of locals here and still niggles, 42 years later. On the morning of Jan. 17, 1966, a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber returning from a routine Cold War alert mission exploded during airborne refueling, sending its cargo of B28 hydrogen bombs plummeting toward earth. One went into the azure waters of the Mediterranean and three others fell ar

Ronald Radosh: How Rosenberg's In-Law Helped Seal Their Fate

[Mr. Radosh, a contributing editor of The New York Sun and adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, is a co-author of "The Rosenberg File."] The Federal Court in New York released yesterday the long-awaited closed Grand Jury Records pertaining to the Rosenberg case. What did they disclose? What new information did they provide about ties between the Rosenbergs and other Soviet spy rings? Do they provide any new information, particularly relating to the role of Ethel

Gavan McCormack: Korea at 60

[Gavan McCormack is a coordinator of Japan Focus and author of Client State: Japan in the American Embrace (New York, Verso, 2007, with Japanese, Chinese and Korean editions in press). He wrote this article for the Korean vernacular newspaper, Kyunghyang sinmun. Posted at Kyunghyang sinmun and at Japan Focus on September 2, 2008.]The Republic of Korea has turned 60. Birthdays are a time for looking back over the past as well as for planning the future. The sad truth, however, is that

Jonathan C. Movroydis: LBJ's secret support for Holocaust victims

Much has been written about the controversial life and tumultous presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson. But little did American’s know that as a young Congressman, LBJ secretly secured visas for hundreds of Jews escaping the holocaust into the port of Galveston:Historians have revealed that Johnson, while serving as a young congressman in 1938 and 1939, arran

Heraldo Muñoz: Chile's 9/11 ... and the legacy of Gen. Pinochet

[Heraldo Muñoz, a dissident during the Pinochet era, is Chile's ambassador to the United Nations and the author of "The Dictator's Shadow: Life Under Augusto Pinochet."] Thirty-five years ago today on a different 9/11, army Gen. Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected government of Socialist President Salvador Allende in Chile. Since that day, two issues have continued to generate contention: Should Pinochet be remembered merely as a tyrant who became an inte

Jeffrey Mark Goldberg: The Wars of John McCain

[Jeffrey Mark Goldberg is a journalist. He is an author and a staff writer for The Atlantic Monthly, having previously worked for The New Yorker.] In April of 1969, the commander in chief of American forces in the Pacific, Admiral John S. McCain Jr., sent a cable to General Earle Wheeler, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and to General Creighton Abrams, the commander of American forces in Vietnam, with a pressing message. It is past time, Admiral McCain advised, for Americ

Josh Green: China ... the pickled dictator tour

We paid our driver and hurried out of the cab that brought us to Tiananmen Square, determined to fight the crowds surrounding a large, beige building dominating the middle of the famous public space. The evening before, my girlfriend and I had resolved that this particular site was a must-see. "We have to do it," she said, poring over a travel book. "We have to see Pickled Mao." Why else would one travel to the East if not to see the preserved body o

Paul Evans: Songs of freedom

[Paul Evans is a freelance journalist, and formerly worked for an MP.] When Valery Gergiev conducted Shostakovich amidst Tskhinvali's blasted concrete, he sought to present a humanitarian Russia, one that had brought safety and civilisation to South Ossetia. Those with long memories will recall that Shostakovich was not always so favoured by his homeland. In the wake of the Zhdanov Doctrine, works such as his Eighth Symphony were officially shunned for failing to convey

Paul Vallely: The Big Question ... Was Cromwell a revolutionary hero or a genocidal war criminal?

[Paul Vallely is associate editor of The Independent where he writes about ethical, cultural and political issues.] Why are we asking this now? The 350th anniversary of Oliver Cromwell's death yesterday was marked by the publication of a new book which suggests that the Lord Protector's reputation should be reassessed in the light of two massacres he conducted in Ireland. The slaughter at Drogheda and Wexford in 1649 rank among the greatest atrocities in Anglo-Irish hi

Paul Harvey: Religion and Politics in US Elections ... A Short History

[Mr. Harvey is a Professor of History, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.] As an historian, whenever I ask students about why we are supposed to study history, they always repeat some variant of the standard cliche, "we have to learn the mistakes of the past or else we are doomed to repeat them." I like to respond with my own counter-cliche, "Yes, maybe, but after learning from past mistakes we'll just go on to invent new ones." More seriously, I find th

Jill Kamil: The threat pigeons pose to the Sphinx

While the SCA secretary-general was being interviewed for"Guardian's Spotlight" in July 2008, pigeons were seen pecking away at the eyes and ear cavities of the Sphinx and their droppings were splattered on the stone. The secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities had much to tell his interviewer on"Spotlight". Zahi Hawass waxed lyrical about"exciting things" that have been happening in the field of archaeology -- the discovery of a new tomb of a queen at Saqqara that ha