Roundup: Talking About History

Daniel Choi: Why Scholars Misread Tocqueville’s Democracy in America

[Daniel Choi currently works at Notati, an Internet startup based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.] Over the past few decades, as Karl Marx was thrown into the dustbin, Alexis de Tocqueville came surging back from the graveyard of intellectual history. Tocqueville’s main claim to fame is as the author of Democracy in America, which was originally published in two parts, in 1835 and 1840. Owing large

Michalis Firillas: Turkey needs to show courage in facing its history

[Michalis Firillas is on the editorial staff of Haaretz.] ... What can we learn from the German response to the Holocaust that might help Turkey alter its attitude toward the Armenian genocide? A loaded question? Obviously. An unfair one? Maybe. But is it a useful one? Definitely, and not only for the Turks. If there is one lesson we must have picked up on during the 20th century, it is that we are all "built" for genocide. There is no culture, polity, community that is im

Soli Ozel: Politicians, Stay Out of Our History

[Soli Ozel teaches at Istanbul Bilgi University's Department of International Relations and Political Science.] The U.S. Congress has no moral authority to pass judgment on any other country’s history, particularly with its Iraqi invasion record in public view – nor does any other parliament or political body, for that matter. History cannot be legislated and politicians ought to stay away from trying to do so. It is not their duty. This does not mean that historians ca

James Taranto: Wannabe Historians (Re: Armenian Resolution)

[Mr. Taranto is a columnist for the WSJ.] ... This is a very odd debate. For one thing, it is ultimately about nothing: Congress is not proposing to pass any law, merely to issue a nonbinding resolution--a statement of opinion. Congress issues such resolutions all the time, but usually they are either uncontroversial ("recognizing the 90th birthday of Ronald Reagan") or intended to put lawmakers on the spot by forcing them to take sides on some contentious question (such a

Samantha Power: Turkey needs to get honest about the Armenian holocaust

[Ms. Power is a professor at Harvard and the author of a study of genocide.] Ninety-two years ago, the "Young Turk" regime ordered the executions of Armenian civic leaders and intellectuals, and Turkish soldiers and militia forced the Armenian population to march into the desert, where more than a million died by bayonet or starvation. That horror helped galvanize Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew, to invent the word genocide, which was defined not as the extermination of an en

Nick Coleman: The man who helped Minnesota face up to its Indian past

Until 30 years ago, visitors to the Rotunda of the Minnesota State Capitol could admire a painting of white soldiers vanquishing Sioux Indians at the battle of Killdeer Mountain, out in the western part of what later became North Dakota. But these Sioux weren't fighting. They were fleeing. That 1864 incident was more massacre than battle, costing the lives of two soldiers and 150 Indians, including women and children. The soldiers destroyed the Indians' village and possession

Philip Mead: Walking the Freedom Trail with Iraq War Vets

[Philip Mead is a Ph.D. candidate in the history department at Harvard University. His dissertation examines interactions between civilians and soldiers in the Continental Army] What can the experiences of General Thomas Gage, commander of British forces in North America from 1763 to 1775, teach the United States Army in Iraq? The officers of a field artillery battalion posed that question to members of the Harvard history department in May 2006. Intrigued, I agreed to walk the Free

Tim Roberts: Comparing American and Turkish history

[Tim Roberts is assistant professor of history at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. He is the author of Distant Revolutions: 1848 and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism, forthcoming from the University of Virginia Press, and is currently researching the interaction of American overseas traders and missionaries during the early American republic. He thanks Bilkent students Ay?egül Avc?, Gül?ah ?enkol, and Veysel ?im?ek for their insights and corrections to this essay.] How

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich: How Betsy Ross Became Famous

[Laurel Thatcher Ulrich teaches history at Harvard University. Her latest book is Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History (2007).] For scholars, the story of how Betsy Ross made the first American flag is about as credible as Parson Weems's fable about little George Washington For scholars, the story of how Betsy Ross made the first American flag is about as credible as Parson Weems's fable about little George Washington cutting down the cherry tree. Yet for more than a

Mark Lewis: The history of the future

[Mr. Lewis is a staff writer for Forbes.] The future, as a concept, was born in ancient Mesopotamia, when people began studying the heavens for clues to impending events. But the Babylonians and their fellow stargazers (including the Maya) had a limited idea of the future: They thought time was cyclical, so they were not inclined to contemplate the shape of things to come. What goes around, comes around; why conjure up visions of an improved future Babylon if it will only be destroy

History of Religion in 90 Seconds (Gfx.)

How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? Our map gives us a brief history of the world's most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds? Ready, Set, Go! Click here to watch.

Richard Cohen: Turkey cannot write the history of what happened in 1915 by itself

It goes without saying that the House resolution condemning Turkey for the "genocide" of Armenians in 1915 will serve no earthly purpose and that it will, to say the least, complicate if not severely strain U.S.-Turkey relations. It goes without saying, also, that the Turks are extremely sensitive on the topic and since they are helpful in the war in Iraq and a friend to Israel, that their feelings ought to be taken into account. All of this is true, but I would feel a lot better about

Guenter Lewy: Revisiting the Armenian Genocide

[Guenter Lewy is professor emeritus of political science, University of Massachusetts, and the author of The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide (University of Utah Press, 2005).] The debate over what happened to Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I remains acrimonious ninety years after it began. Armenians say they were the victims of the first genocide of the twentieth century. Most Turks say Armenians died during intercommunal fighting and duri

Stephen Scheinberg: Jews Face the Armenian Genocide

[Dr. Scheinberg is emeritus professor of history, Concordia University, and co-chair of Canadian Friends of Peace Now. His editorials can be heard on Montreal’s Radio Shalom 1650AM on Monday at 7:15A.M. and Wednesday at 6:14P.M.] There is a controversy raging among American Jews which may get even hotter in the coming days. The issue arises because the U.S. Congress will once again be asked to vote for a bill recognizing the Armenian genocide of 1915. One might think that this would

Martin Marty: Atlas Shrugged at Fifty

[Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, upcoming events, publications, and contact information can be found at www.illuminos.com .] W. C. Fields, as previously noted in Sightings, once announced that he'd spent years studying the Bible, looking for a loophole. For fifty years Christian and other leaders have been reading the Bible looking for one line in it that might justify the popular philosophy of Ayn Rand, whose novel Atlas Shrugged is still selling

Maurice Isserman: The march on the Pentagon, 40 years later

[Maurice Isserman is a professor of American history at Hamilton College. He is co-author, with Michael Kazin, of America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (Oxford University Press, 2007).] Toward dusk on the evening of October 21, 1967, a burly federal marshal took hold of my feet, dragged me away from the plaza in front of the Pentagon where I had been sitting in, and pulled me down the adjacent embankment, before depositing me on the pavement of the building's north parking lot

Judi McLeod: Muslims discovered America

[McLeod is a columnist.] North America may be reviled as ‘the Land of the Infidels’, but according to Muslim Imam, al-Hajj Talib ‘Abdur-Rashid, it is the Muslims and not the seafaring Columbus who discovered it. This tops the whopper category edging out Islam claims that Moses was not a Jew but the first Muslim. “(A) ncient Arabic (Muslim) language maps, Native American tribes with African names and words clearly embedded in their languages, statues, diarie

Stacy Schiff: Founding Chauvinist Pig?

If you really want to analyze the founding fathers through their love lives, Alexander Hamilton is the man to watch, the only blackmail-paying, apology-offering adulterer in the bunch. Washington, Adams, Jay, the long and loyally married, can sit this one out. A scamp from early on and a flirt well into his widowed 70s, Franklin was ultimately more talk than action. Which again raises that pesky question: What to do with Jefferson? The romantic history is a checkered one. It begins

Daniel Pipes: The myth of the Knights Templar

[Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his blog.] In a sensational bit of sleuthing, Barbara Frale, a medievalist at the Vatican's Secret Archives, stumbled in 2001 on Processus Contra Templario

Robert Dallek: As Camelot Began ... The Unseen Portraits of the Kennedys by Richard Avedon

When President-Elect John F. Kennedy and his family posed for Avedon in January 1961, it sent a message of youth, vitality, and confidence. As a new book by Shannon Thomas Perich chronicles the session, biographer Robert Dallek, in this exclusive assessment for Vanity Fair, gives the historical backdrop to the photos, many of which appear for the first time. To see the Avedon portraits, pick up the November issue. *** ... To be sure, Kennedy did not discount the importa