Roundup: Talking About History

Text of Tony Blair's statement on slavery

Tony Blair has written the following statement of regret at Britain's role in the slave trade that appears in New Nation, a black community newspaper that has pressed for several years for an apology for slavery. The transatlantic slave trade stands as one of the most inhuman enterprises in history.  At a time when the capitals of Europe and America championed the Enlightenment of man, their merchants were enslaving a continent.  Racism, not the rights of man, drove the horrors of

Paul Vallely: The Big Question: Are apologies for historical events worthwhile or just empty gestures?

The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has just been holding forth about "how profoundly shameful the slave trade was", in the run-up to the 200th anniversary next year of the outlawing of the practice on British ships. He didn't just praise those who fought for its abolition, but also expressed "our deep sorrow that it ever happened". That's not exactly an apology No, it's more an expression of regret. These historical/political apologies often are. Part

Richard A. Shweder: Whatever happened to the triumph of the Enlightenment?

[Richard A. Shweder is a professor of comparative human development at the University of Chicago and a co-editor of "Engaging Cultural Differences."] One of the surest ways to bring a certain type of dinner party to a halt is to speak piously about God. Earnest reference to sinners, apostates or blasphemers, or to the promise of salvation offered in evangelical churches, is likely to produce the same effect. Among the cosmopolites who live in secular enclaves,

Then: revisiting the feasts of yore

Put away your Pilgrim hat. Sit down, Squanto. Set sail, Mayflower. Step off Plymouth Rock and follow me to southern Virginia's James River, home of the Berkeley Plantation, when history says a few dozen men celebrated their arrival in the New World in 1619 -- the first true Thanksgiving. That is, if their neighbors in Jamestown, just down the river, didn't throw some kind of party after establishing the first American settlement 399 years ago. Or if you don't count th

Thanksgiving story more myth than history

Any graduate of an American elementary school could recite a pretty good rendition of the first Thanksgiving. Common knowledge cites that Pilgrims and Indians came together to celebrate the settlers’ first harvest in the New World with a feast. Subsequently, Americans have celebrated the holiday every year by eating themselves silly and watching “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,” the Macy’s parade and football on TV. What most kids learn in school, though, has little to do with

Talking turkey about the REAL 1st Thanksgiving

One autumn day in 1621, newly arrived Pilgrims joined native Wampanoag Indians in Massachusetts' Plymouth Colony to share a harvest meal of thanksgiving, including roast turkey, pumpkin pie and the Indian-supplied delicacy, popcorn. From kindergartners acting in their first pageant to grandparents presiding over the family feast, most Americans know the story of Thanksgiving cold. And most of them would be wrong. It's time to talk turkey about Thanksgiving. While long i

Tristram Hunt : Slavery ... Britain is poised to come to terms with its role in the brutal trade in human lives

Captain Luke Collingwood's voyage was not going well. Poor navigation and strong headwinds meant his ship, the Zong, was taking months, not weeks, to sail from Africa to Jamaica. More worryingly, his cargo was beginning to rot. For shackled beneath the deck, pressed back to face, festering in each others' excrement, blood and sweat, some 440 slaves lay slowly dying. Seeing his profits slip away as the deaths mounted, Collingwood resorted to an insurance scam. With each African covered at

David Brooks: The Education of Robert Kennedy

Emilio Estevez’s movie, “Bobby,” introduces the martyrdom of Robert Kennedy to another generation of Americans, but it was Robert’s reaction to his brother’s death that is really most instructive to the young. Robert Kennedy was dining at home on Nov. 22, 1963, when J. Edgar Hoover called. “I have news for you,” Hoover began coldly. “The president’s been shot.” Kennedy turned away from his lunch companions, his hand to his mouth and his face twisted in pain. In the en

Alan Ehrenhalt: How the Yes Man Learned to Say No

[Alan Ehrenhalt, the executive editor of Governing magazine, is the author of “The United States of Ambition” and “The Lost City.”] MOST of us know what conformity is. We know what individualism is. We understand at some level that civilized society is based on a continuing tension between them. And many of us look back at the second half of the 20th century as a drama about that tension: the conformist, white-bread 1950s yielding to the individualist rebellion of the 1960s, and to

Derrick Z. Jackson: The MLK We Hardly Knew

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote this: "On the one hand I must attempt to change the soul of individuals so that their societies may be changed. On the other, I must attempt to change the societies so that the individual soul will have a change. Therefore, I must be concerned about unemployment, slums and economic insecurity. I am a profound advocator of the social gospel." King also wrote this: "One of the great weaknesses of liberal theology is that it becomes so involv

Robert Jensen: No Thanks to Thanksgiving

[Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and the author of, most recently, "The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege" (City Lights Books).] Instead, we should atone for the genocide that was incited -- and condoned -- by the very men we idolize as our 'heroic' founding fathers. One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulge

Interview with Flores Forbes: His Memoir on the Black Panther Party

Flores Forbes first joined the Black Panther Party when he was 16 years old. He became the youngest member of the Black Panther's Central Committee and ended up spending nearly five years in prison for an attempted assassination. Flores is now chief strategic officer of the Abyssinian Development Corporation in Harlem. His new memoir is called "Will You Die With Me? My Life and the Black Panther Party." He joins us in our firehouse studio. [includes rush transcript]

Nathaniel Philbrick: How Dylan is a lot like Plymouth Rock

[Nathaniel Philbrick is the author of “Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War” and “In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex.”] LAST week, I went to see Bob Dylan at the Nassau Coliseum. It turned out to be a terrific rock ’n’ roll show. I must admit, however, to being somewhat distracted by how Mr. Dylan and his band were dressed. They wore hats and rather elegant suits, and it was in the midst of “Like a Rolling Stone,” as Dylan stood before the keyboa

Allen Guelzo: Why Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was so important

[Mr. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College and the author, inter alia, of "Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America" (Simon and Schuster, 2004).] On Nov. 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered the dedication remarks at the opening ceremonies of a cemetery for soldiers of the Civil War in Gettysburg, Pa. This "Gettysburg Address" -- a gem-like model of conciseness, passion and political eloquence --

Timothy B. Tyson: Wilmington's race riot and the rise of white supremacy

[Timothy B. Tyson is senior research scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.] On Nov. 10, 1898, heavily armed columns of white men marched into the black neighborhoods of Wilmington. In the name of white supremacy, this well-ordered mob burned the offices of the local black newspaper, murdered perhaps dozens of black residents -- the precise number isn't known -- and banished many successful black citizens and their so-called "white nigger" allies

David W. Jacobs: Who Was Agent 355? (Am Rev)

At our October meeting, Round Tablers had occasion to be proud as well as fascinated. Two of our members, Andrea Meyer and John Burke, told us about their research into one of the mysteries of the Revolution, the identity of the woman known only as 355. It is a puzzle they have probed, singly and together, for many years. What they found was electrifying. 355 was a member of the so-called Culper spy ring, based on Long Island with agents in New York. She was almost certainly a friend of Major J

Thomas Sowell: Milton Friedman had both genius and common sense

Milton Friedman was one of the very few intellectuals with both genius and common sense. He could express himself at the highest analytical levels to his fellow economists in academic publications and still write popular books such as "Capitalism and Freedom" and "Free to Choose" that could be understood by people who knew nothing about economics. Indeed, his television series, "Free to Choose," was readily understandable even by people who don’t read books.

Lawrence H. Summers: Why even liberals came to admire Milton Friedman

[Lawrence H. Summers, a university professor of economics at Harvard, was Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration.] IF John Maynard Keynes was the most influential economist of the first half of the 20th century, then Milton Friedman was the most influential economist of the second half. Not so long ago, we were all Keynesians. (“I am a Keynesian,” Richard Nixon famously said in 1971.) Equally, any honest Democrat will admit that we are now all Friedmanites. Mr

Brad DeLong: Milton Friedman's Legacy

"Lord, enlighten thou our enemies," prayed 19th century British economist and moral philosopher John Stuart Mill in his"Essay on Coleridge.""Sharpen their wits, give acuteness to their perceptions, and consecutiveness and clearness to their reasoning powers. We are in danger from their folly, not from their wisdom: their weakness is what fills us with apprehension, not their strength." For every left-of-center American economist in the second half of the 20th century, Milton Friedman

Joel Waldfogel: Tracing wealth back to the Stone Age

Economic historians divide the history of living standards into two eras, which could be named for the Flintstones and the Jetsons. The Flintstones era runs from the beginning of time through the Stone, Bronze, and Iron ages and up to about 1800. The Jetsons era begins with the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and culminates in a utopian future in which˜Jane, stop this crazy thing!˜machines do everything. The Jetsons era trounces the Flintstones era in terms of leaps forward in glob