Roundup: Talking About History

Krzysztof Ruchniewicz: The memory of World War II in Poland

A nation's perception of its own history affects relationships not only within its boundaries, but also those with other peoples. Memory of World War II is of particular importance in this sense. Memories of this period remain vivid for the more than 20 per cent of Poles who experienced it personally, as well as for all the others who learned about it through the accounts of family members. "The ever palpable results of World War II have led us inexorably to thinking and speaking about it f

Tony Taylor: Changes are needed if history is to live up to the billing of a core subject

[Tony Taylor is an associate professor at the faculty of education, Monash University.] It was George W. Bush who best summed it up in one of his wonderfully barmy quotes. "I think we agree," he asserted cheerfully, "that the past is over." He may not have intended it to come out quite that way, but the comment accurately summarises the attitude of a significant number of educators towards history - a discipline that has rarely been out of the news o

Robert Fisk: An urge to smash history into tiny pieces

What is it about graven images? Why are we humanoids so prone to destroy our own faces, smash our own human history, erase the memory of language? I've covered the rape of Bosnian and Serb and Croatian culture in ex-Yugoslavia – the deliberate demolition of churches, libraries, graveyards, even the wonderful Ottoman Mostar Bridge – and I've heard the excuses. "There's no place for these old things," the Croat gunner reportedly said as he fired his artillery battery towards that gracefu

Sonia Ryang: The 1923 Tokyo Earthquake and the Massacre of Koreans

[Sonia Ryang is associate profesor of anthropology and international studies and C. Maxwell and Elizabeth M. Stanley Family and Korea Foundation scholar of Korean studies at University of Iowa. Her most recent book is Love in Modern Japan: Its Estrangement from Self, Sex, and Society (Routledge 2006) and forthcoming book is Diaspora without Homeland: Being Korean in Japan (University of California Press 2008), co-edited with John Lie.] ... September 1, 1923, 11:58 a.m. The earthquak

Michael S. Sherry: In the 1950s and 60s, were gay artists emblems of national pride or signs of a homosexual mafia?

[Michael S. Sherry is a professor of history at Northwestern University. This article is adapted from his Gay Artists in Modern American Culture: An Imagined Conspiracy, to be published this month by the University of North Carolina Press.] In the mid-20th century, gay figures created much of modern American culture — the sounds of Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring, the words and moods of Stanley and Blanche in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, the songs and dances of

David Greenberg: Reagan in 100 Pages

[David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers, has two new books out: Presidential Doodles and Calvin Coolidge.] This week, Slate is serializing Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography, a 100-page comic-book account of the 40th president's life, to be published next week by Serious Comics and Hill and Wang. Slate's resident historian David Greenberg spoke with Andrew Helfer, who wrote Ronald Reagan—Steve Buccellato and Joe Staton drew the art—and co-founded Serious Com

Andrew Cockburn: What happened in Halabja

If the United States ever possessed a shred of moral authority for the invasion of Iraq, it came from Halabja, a Kurdish town of about 70,000 people nestling in a bowl in front of the towering mountain chain that fringes Iraq's northeast frontier with Iran. Halabja was once famous among Kurds as the "city of poets," and the townspeople were known for their love of books. It is doubtful that George W. Bush had ever heard of the poets, but he did find it useful to know that in 1988 Halab

Philip Terzian: Bush understands Graham Greene better than his critics

[Philip Terzian is literary editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.] "The argument that America's presence in Indochina was dangerous had a long pedigree. In 1955, long before the United States had entered the war, Graham Greene wrote a novel called The Quiet American. It was set in Saigon, and the main character was a young government agent named Alden Pyle. He was a symbol of American purpose and patriotism--and dangerous naiveté. Another character describes Alden this way: 'I neve

Matthew Continetti: Liberals Complain ... Hands Off My Analogy

[Matthew Continetti is associate editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.] On August 22, at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City, Missouri, President Bush delivered a 43-minute speech in which he compared the war in Iraq, and America's war on Islamic terrorism in general, to the three large 20th-century U.S. military interventions in Asia. The most controversial section of Bush's speech was 15 paragraphs likening those who claimed that America was the problem in Vietnam and

Editorial: Sports stars should study history of their own sports

Athletes should be encouraged to put aside their PlayStations, unhook their Ipod’s, halt their text-messaging and dip into the histories of their game, writes Rohit Brijnath. Fifty years ago, a woman who was born to poverty on a cotton plantation and routinely tasted discrimination on her remarkable journey, won the US Open. Althea Gibson was tennis’ version of Jackie Robinson in a way, a black athlete hurdling prejudice to assert herself in a sport that was once reserve

R.W. Johnson: South Africa is going through an orgy of name-changing

[Mr. Johnson is emeritus fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Southern Africa correspondent for the London Sunday Times.] South Africa is going through an orgy of name-changing. In Durban alone, the city council, run by the ruling African National Congress, has come up with 194 streets to be renamed while the local provincial authority has listed 78 rivers and 76 places to be renamed. Pretoria, the capital, is no more: It is now Tshwane, though even Africans seldom know that the

John O'Sullivan: The history of empire can reunite the nation

[John O'Sullivan is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and author of The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister (Regnery).] At some point in the Second World War, R.A. Butler came to see Churchill to voice his anxiety about the failure of the education system to instill patriotism in the nation's youth. He wondered what could be done about it. "Tell the children that Wolfe took Quebec," advised the Prime Minister. It remains good advice, with the qual

Melik Kaylan: Visiting Georgia's Museum of the Soviet Occupation is like watching a perfectly staged, cathartic tragedy

[Mr. Kaylan writes about culture for The Wall Street Journal.] TBILISI, Georgia--Upon entry, the museum feels more like a mausoleum, which is as it should be. You walk into a large, bunker-like space, dark but strangely welcoming, oddly calming. With the sad intimacy of a voyeur peering from darkness to washes of light, you peer at the wall-mounted exhibits. Searing bouquets of memory, they seem to rise at you. After all, the Museum of the Soviet Occupation here is a kind of mausole

Megan Marshall: The Women's History Boom

[Megan Marshall's biography The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism won the Francis Parkman Prize and the Mark Lynton History Prize, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography and memoir.] During the summer of 1976, as the country was turning its back on defeat in Vietnam with unabashedly patriotic celebrations of its bicentennial, I took a work-study job at the Women's History Research Center in Berkeley, Calif., a choice I viewed as a minor pr

Dan Gardner: The next big war museum controversy (Canada)

A lot of people are upset that the Canadian War Museum finally surrendered to the veterans' lobby. Not me. I'm delighted. I've been itching to go through the museum's exhibits with Wite-Out and a magic marker and now, thanks to the veterans' successful campaign to put hurt feelings above scholarship, I should get my chance. What is it I want to change? I've got a long list but this is a short column so let me skip the first gallery and go straight to the Boer War. Here'

Ronald Radosh: Seeger Speaks — and Sings — Against Stalin

[Dr. Radosh is author or co-author of 14 books, His work has appeared frequently in such venues as The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, National Review, The American Interest, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and other journals and newspapers.] Pete Seeger, America's best-known and most influential folksinger, wrote me a letter a few days ago. I did not expect to hear from him. Last June, I wrote in these pages about the new documentary on his life. The article ran under

Jeffrey Lord: Nixon's warning ... no more Vietnams

[Jeffrey Lord is the creator, co-founder and CEO of QubeTV. A former Reagan White House political director and an author, he writes from Pennsylvania.] In a rare Washington visit to attend the funeral of Arthur Burns [in 1987], a former Federal Reserve Board chairman who had also been the President's friend and economic adviser, word reached the Reagan White House political staff that Nixon would like to meet with us.... For almost two weeks afterwards I found myself wo

New Republic Editorial: Donors to presidential libraries should be disclosed

... Early reports suggest that George W. Bush plans to raise roughly $500 million for his presidential library, which will likely be based at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and possibly include a public-policy institute. According to The New York Daily News, "Bush loyalists have already identified wealthy heiresses, Arab nations, and captains of industry as mega' donors." It's a strange wrinkle in the law: The president can raise half a billion dollars--even while he's still i

Aaron William Moore: Soldiers’ Diaries in the Asia Pacific War

In the last decade, numerous film and print media treatments of the Second World War have focused on the “soldier’s perspective.” Because the wartime generation is now rapidly disappearing, postwar generations have become especially eager to know the war. In particular, there is a hunger to learn how it was experienced by ordinary servicemen—a focus popularized most effectively by historian John Keegan (and film directors such as Clint Eastwood, Oliver Stone, and Francis Ford Coppola). Scholars

Mark D. Tooley: The Killing Fields of Honest History (Cambodia)

[Mark D. Tooley directs the United Methodist committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy.] Jim Wallis' Sojourners reacted quickly to President Bush's comparison of Iraq to Vietnam. The Iraq-Vietnam comparison is in fact a frequent one for the Religious Left, but not the way Bush described it. For the Religious Left, every U.S. military involvement is "another Vietnam," i.e. a futile quagmire pitting enlightened Third World liberationists against clueless Western i