Roundup: Talking About History

George Packer: Bush's legacy will be ...

[George Packer has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since May 2003. In addition to his coverage of Iraq, he has written on the atrocities committed in Sierra Leone, civil unrest in the Ivory Coast, and the Al-Jazeera satellite news channel. He is the author of The Assassins' Gate.] George W. Bush did four good things last week. He strengthened sanctions on Sudanese companies and officials in response to the ongoing massacres in Darfur. He called on Congress to double the funding

Robert McHenry: Israel’s Pyrrhic Victory - The Six-Day War

[Robert McHenry is a former editor-in-chief of Encyclopaedia Britannica and author of How to Know.] Epirus was a region of ancient Greece, spanning what are now the northwestern corner of modern Greece and the southern coastal reaches of Albania. The ruling house in the region during the 5th – 3rd centuries BCE, the Molossians, claimed descent from Achilles and had ties through marriage to the Macedonian rulers Philip and Alexander the Great. The greatest king in the Mo

Andrew Weaver: More questions about SMU's deal for the Bush library

[Andrew Weaver, M.Th., Ph.D., is a United Methodist pastor and research psychologist. He has co-authored eight books including, Counseling Troubled Older Adults (Abingdon, 1997), Counseling Troubled Teens and Their Families (Abingdon, 1999). Reflections on Marriage and Spiritual Growth (Abingdon, 2003) and Counseling Survivors of Traumatic Events (Abingdon, 2003).] In her final column before her untimely death, Molly Ivins wrote:"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders.

Peter Parker: They won history's biggest gamble (India)

The epilogue to Ramachandra Guha's huge but absorbing "history of the world's largest democracy" is entitled "Why India Survives". When India gained independence 60 years ago many people predicted catastrophe. How could a single nation emerge from a subcontinent that - even after Partition - was fragmented by religious, cultural and linguistic differences? Nehru declared in his broadcast on August 15, 1947: "A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history,

Judith Apter Klinghoffer: The 6-Day War was 40 Years Ago

But you can see it all on an amazing 11 part series entitled "Follow Me" after the famous Israeli battle cry. I posted here the first part. If you like it click upon the website above to see the rest. It is truly a treat.

Hank Nelson: The massive Japanese state effort to transport, organize, supervise, and supply some 2,000 women in sexual service in New Guinea

[Hank Nelson is emeritus professor in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies of Australian National University, and author of many studies in Australian and Pacific history, particularly in relation to the Second World War in Australia and the Pacific. This paper was first presented at a Division of Pacific and Asian History seminar at the Australian National University, Canberra on 8 May 2007. It has been submitted for publication to the Journal of Pacific History.] From

Economist: Israel's wasted victory

ON THE seventh day Jews everywhere celebrated Israel's deliverance from danger. But 40 years after that tumultuous June of 1967, the six-day war has come to look like one of history's pyrrhic victories. That is not to say that the war was unnecessary. Israel struck after Egypt's President Nasser sent his army into the Sinai peninsula, evicted United Nations peacekeeping forces and blockaded Israeli shipping through the Gulf of Aqaba. Israel's victory opened the waterway and smashed its enemies'

Neatorama: This Won’t Hurt a Bit: A Painlessly Short (and Incomplete) Evolution of Execution.

As long as there have been criminals, there have been governments thinking up novel ways to execute ‘em. We don’t know which of the following gruesome methods the Founding Fathers had in mind with that whole ban on "cruel and unusual punishment," but we know they had plenty to choose from. Method: Crushing by Elephant Deadly Debut: India, 4,000 years ago. (It’s probably older, but recorded history doesn’t go back that far.) [HNN: This article goes

Günter Grass: How I Spent the War

In 1943, when I was a fifteen-year-old schoolboy in Danzig, volunteered for active duty. When Why? Since I do not know the exact date and cannot recall the by the unstable climate of the war, or list its hot spots from the Arctic to the Caucasus, all I can do for now is string together the circumstances that probably triggered and nourished my decision to enlist. No mitigating epithets allowed. What did cannot be put down to youthful folly. No pressure from above. No did I feel the n

David Brooks: Al Gore's Theory of History

... [Al] Gore is ... a radical technological determinist. While most politicians react to people, Gore reacts to machines, and in this book he lays out a theory of history entirely driven by them. He writes that “the idea of self-government became feasible after the printing press.” With this machine, people suddenly had the ability to use the printed word to debate ideas and proceed logically to democratic conclusions. As Gore writes in his best graduate school manner, “The eightee

Diane Ravitch: First, Get the Knowledge

[Ms. Ravitch is a research professor of education at New York University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the Hoover Institution.] Who was the greatest American president? According to the latest Gallup poll, 18% of Americans picked Abraham Lincoln. Second place goes to Ronald Reagan, 16%, followed by John F. Kennedy, 14%, Bill Clinton, 13%, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, 9%. These numbers demonstrate that the public is woefully ignorant of history. That

Wendy Kaminer: Plagiarism, according to Judge Richard Posner

[Wendy Kaminer, a lawyer and writer, is the author most recently of Free for All: Defending Liberty in America Today (2002).] Plagiarism, like infidelity, is a habit that few defend but many indulge. You can discern its frequency and covert acceptability in the ready excuses offered by and on behalf of eminent writers and professors periodically caught copying the work of less eminent writers or research assistants. Consider the group of famous novelists who rushed to defend British

Maureen Ogle: The Perils and Pleasures of Going “Popular” (Or My Life as a Loser)

[In addition to Ambitious Brew, Maureen Ogle is the author of Key West: History of an Island of Dreams (University Press of Florida, 2003) and All the Modern Conveniences: American Household Plumbing, 1840-1890 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). Her current project is Carnivore Nation: The History of Meat in America (Harcourt, forthcoming).] The historian reads an email, and then leaps out of her chair, whooping and hollering. According to the message, her new book has:

Lynne Duke: The Shackles in the Shadows of History

[Lynne Duke is a WaPo staff writer.] n 1619, 12 years after Jamestown's settlement, two British privateers sailed into the James River with African captives for sale. The Africans had Portuguese names; they apparently knew Christianity, according to John Thornton and Linda Heywood, a husband-and-wife team of Boston University historians. Those first Africans came from the kingdom of Ndongo, now Angola, which had been penetrated by Portuguese missionaries and traders who soon stopped

Michael Beschloss: Finding Faith in the Oval Office

[Michael Beschloss is a presidential historian and author of several books, including Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989 (Simon and Schuster).] While writing “Presidential Courage,” I discovered that one of the biggest hidden influences on the nine Presidents in my book was religious faith – a faith that most of them concealed. One story I tell is of Harry Truman deciding whether or not to recognize Israel in 1948. He had the pow

Daniel Pipes: The Soviets' Six-Day War

[Mr. Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum. His website address is http://www.danielpipes.org. Click here for his blog.] One of the great enigmas of the modern Middle East is why, forty years ago next week, the Six-Day War took place. Neither Israel nor its Arab neighbors wanted or expected a fight in June 1967; the consensus view among historians holds that the unwanted combat resulted from a

Andrew Roberts: Michael Barone explains how the "Glorious" Revolution led to the American one

[Mr. Roberts's "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900" was recently published by HarperCollins. ] When the English-speaking peoples consider the forces that have made them the global hegemonic political culture since the mid-19th century--representative institutions, the rule of law, religious toleration and property rights among them--they look back to Britain's "Glorious" Revolution of 1688. What at first looks merely like a minor coup d'état tha

Lisa Jardine: What's so bad about replicas? (Cutty Sark)

The Cutty Sark is to undergo yet more restoration work after being ravaged by fire. Parts of it will be too badly damaged to be saved, so at what point does it cease to be the original ship? I have spoken more than once, in the course of these broadcasts, of my fascination as an historian with the survival of things from the past, and the way touching and handling objects, or fragments of material, can help us recall with particular vividness and intensity otherwise inaccessible m

Nicholas Lemann: The diaries of Ronald Reagan

... Reagan’s reputation has risen steadily since he left office. Republican politicians’ constant, incantatory tributes t him—as at the first debate among the Party’s 2008 Presidential aspirants, held earlier this month at the Reaga Library—testify to his popularity. To judge from Brinkley’s selection, the domestic operations of government hardl ever crossed Reagan’s mind; the outstanding item on his résumé is the collapse of Soviet Communism in the years jus after he left office. Reagan’s f

David Remnick: Why the 6-Day War is still being fought

... Nowhere has revisionist history played a more crucial role in the political and moral consciousness of a nation than in Israel. The state came into being in 1948, and, almost immediately, its prehistory––the origins of Zionist ideology, the behavior of the British during the Mandate period, and, critically, the relationship with the Other, the Palestinian Arabs—became matter for schoolbooks, journalism, military indoctrination, scholarship, and public rhetoric. The founding generation that h