Roundup: Talking About History

Samuel G. Freedman: Religion and Comic Books ... Where Did Superman’s Theology Come From?

When Rabbi Simcha Weinstein leads Rosh Hashanah services this weekend at the B’nai Avraham synagogue in Brooklyn Heights, he will read a liturgy deeply concerned with the concept of teshuva, or repentance. And when Rabbi Weinstein speaks of repentance, he often thinks of a young man he met decades ago by the name of Peter Parker. Parker had been walking home after competing in a wrestling match, vain in the aftermath of his victory, and as a robber dashed past him, he did nothing. T

Islam, Islamism: A Guide for Teachers

On May 6-7, FPRI's Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education hosted 44 teachers from 16 states across the country for a weekend of discussion on teaching about Islam. Speakers were drawn from the disciplines of religious studies, anthropology, political science, history, law, and journalism. The institute, held in Bryn Mawr, Pa., was made possible by a grant from the Annenberg Foundation. Future history weekends include Understanding China, to

David Forte: Islam’s Trajectory

[David Forte is Charles R. Emrick Jr.-Calfee, Halter & Griswold Endowed Professor of Law at Cleveland State University and author of Studies in Islamic Law (Austin & Winfield, 1999). This essay is based on his presentation at the May 6-7, 2006 History Institute for Teachers on Islam, Islamism, and Democratic Values, hosted by FPRI’s Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education. The institute, held in Bryn Mawr, Pa., was made possible by a grant from the Annenberg Foundation.]

Bruce Craig: History Defined in Florida Legislature

[Bruce Craig is director of the National Coalition for History.] Buried in a 160-page bill—the Florida Education Omnibus Bill (H.B. 7087e3), essentially a comprehensive K–12 education bill—that Florida Governor Jeb Bush recently signed into law, are new provisions designed to "meet the highest standards for professionalism and historic accuracy." Some Florida history teachers, though have questioned the philosophical underpinnings of the law. The most controversial

Saul Landau: How 9/11 Exposed Pinochet's Criminal Career as a Narcotrafficker

[Saul Landau's new book, A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD, will be published by Counterpunch Press. He can be reached at: slandau@igc.org] On 9/11/73, General Augusto Pinochet led a military coup that overthrew Chile's elected government. The military bombed the Presidential Palace, assassinated 3,197 and tortured of tens of thousands more in order to "save" Chile from "subversion." Three decades later, Chilean courts stripped Pinochet

Andrei Lankov: China and Korea can't escape their pasts

[Dr Andrei Lankov is a lecturer in the faculty of Asian Studies, China and Korea Center, Australian National University. He graduated from Leningrad State University with a PhD in Far Eastern history and China, with emphasis on Korea, and his thesis focused on factionalism in the Yi Dynasty. He has published books and articles on Korea and North Asia. He is currently on leave, teaching at Kookmin University, Seoul.] When South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun met with Chinese Premier W

Scott Jaschik: Harming the Historical Record

Scholars who work on large archival projects have struggled during the Bush administration. The president has repeatedly proposed eliminating the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, which is one of the two federal programs that supports the intense, decades-long projects that involve editing and publishing of collections of documents. Congress has saved the program, but just barely. Now the National Endowment for the Humanities has revamped the rules for the oth

Cyrus Nowrasteh: My sin was to write a screenplay accurately depicting Bill Clinton's record on terrorism

[Mr. Nowrasteh wrote the screenplay for the ABC docudrama about 9/11.] I am neither an activist, politician or partisan, nor an ideologue of any stripe. What I am is a writer who takes his job very seriously, as do most of my colleagues: Also, one who recently took on the most distressing and important story it will ever fall to me to tell. I considered it a privilege when asked to write the script for "The Path to 9/11." I felt duty-bound from the outset to focus on a si

William Fitzhugh: Why writing history term papers is vital

[Mr. Fitzhugh, a Harvard graduate, and one-time high school history teacher, is the founder and editor of The Concord Review.] In the 1980s, when I was teaching history at the high school in Concord, Mass., there was increasing concern about measuring the outcomes of education. It occurred to me that a journal of exemplary high school history essays might show other students and teachers what was possible. So I established a quarterly journal in 1987, and students start

Max Holland: Should ABC Have Yanked The Path to 9/11?

[Mr. Holland, a contributing editor at the Nation magazine, was a research fellow with the Presidential Recordings Program at the Miller Center of Public Affairs from 1998 to 2003.] It's an argument as old as the movies themselves: what obligation does Hollywood have to history? When filmmakers claim they are depicting a real event, do they enjoy complete dramatic license? Are they free to create fictional characters, compress time, conflate some events and erase others, invent dial

Max Blumenthal: ABC 9/11 Docudrama's Right-Wing Roots

On Friday, September 8, just forty-eight hours before ABC planned to air its so-called"docudrama," The Path to 9/11, Robert Iger, CEO of ABC's corporate parent, the Walt Disney Company, was presented with incontrovertible evidence outlining the involvement of that film's screenwriter and director in a concerted right-wing effort to blame former President Bill Clinton for allowing the 9/11 attacks to take place. Iger told a source close to ABC that he was"deeply troubled" by

Richard Brookhiser: Why George Mason didn't put his John Hancock on the Constitution

[Mr. Brookhiser is the author of "What Would the Founders Do? Our Questions, Their Answers" (2006)] In 1953, the political scientist Clinton Rossiter ranked the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written in May 1776 largely by George Mason, "among the world's most memorable triumphs in applied political theory." Mason's handiwork influenced both the Declaration of Independence, which his young acquaintance Thomas Jefferson produced the following month, and the Bill

Richard C. Salter: The Peace Corps and American Myths

[Richard C. Salter is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.] September 22 will mark the 45th anniversary of a moment par excellence in American civil religion: Congressional approval to fund the U.S. Peace Corps. President Kennedy initiated the Peace Corps in March of 1961, but for the new venture to succeed, it required Congressional support. Notwithstanding some heated discussion, the bill passed by a landslide (253 to 79), receiving supp

Neil Faulkner: Revisionism and the New Imperialism

The ninetieth anniversary of the Battle of the Somme has highlighted the extent to which revisionist academics are rewriting the history of imperialism and war in the twentieth century. The BBC’s drama-documentary shown on 2nd July comprised 50 minutes of fairly conventional description of the slaughter followed by a final, rather bizarre 10-minute homily in which we were assured it was all worthwhile because the British Army learnt the tactics needed to beat the Germans two years later. This re

Anne Alexander: Unpicking the knots: War and imperialism in the Middle East

... Perry Anderson makes clear, in his excellent survey of the Arab-Israeli conflict in New Left Review, that the liberation of Palestine represents one of the last great struggles of the colonial era. The question of Palestine provides a concrete link between the role of the old imperial powers in the Middle East, Britain and France, and the new, in particular the United States. Zionism: False Messiah by Nathan Weinstock outlines the development of the Zionist movement and its relationship to t

Joe Morgenstern: "Death of a President" courts controversy, but to what end?

[Mr. Morgenstern is the Journal's movie critic.] he first question posed by "Death of a President" is whether a filmmaker has the right to shout Assassination in a crowded theater. That's what happened, in effect, on Sunday night at the Toronto International Film Festival when Gabriel Range's film was screened for the first time, to a turnaway audience. A fake documentary set one year in the future, "D.O.A.P.," as it has also been called, depicts the assassinatio

Gene Weingarten: Is He the Worst President?

We in the media are sometimes accused of letting liberal bias subtly slip into our writing and reporting. That accusation is calumny. We are dispassionate observers and seekers of truth. All we do is ask questions. Today's question: Is George W. Bush the worst president in American history? An examination of this issue requires that we first consider possible alternatives. Historians pretty much agree on the three leading contenders, to date. Franklin Pierc

Jonathan Rauch: Assessing Bush's Legacy

History judges good presidents by what they do, bad ones by how long they take to undo. Although history hasn’t yet caught up with President George W. Bush, midterm elections are about to—and those are often a referendum on presidential performance. Now is therefore as good a time as any to jump to a conclusion: the question history will ask is whether Bush’s presidency was as bad as Richard Nixon’s or only as bad as Jimmy Carter’s. Five years ago, with the ruins of the Twin Towers

Herbert Bix: The Immunity of Non-Combatants and the Myth of Good Intentions (Hiroshima & Nagasaki)

[Herbert P. Bix, author of Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, writes on problems of war and empire. A Japan Focus associate, he prepared this article for Japan Focus.] In late 1945, in a context of restored peace, American leaders set about constructing the postwar international order. Among the issues they confronted were the establishment of the United Nations and

Jonathan Zimmerman: On 9/11, keep war politics out of the classroom

[Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University and is author of the forthcoming book"Innocents Abroad: American Teachers in the American Century."] Next Monday, schools in Killeen, Tex., will host"Freedom Walks" to mark the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. In Little Rock, Ark., one high school will stage a dramatic play about victims and survivors of the tragedy. And in Arlington, Va., students will observe a moment of silence at 9:37 a.m., when a pla