Roundup: Talking About History

Lew Freedman: Teddy Roosevelt And Today's Conservationists

It was as if by walking through the door we had stepped into the past. The greeter had his hair cut in a recognizable wave, glasses perched on his nose just so, with familiar thick mustache and deep voice. As Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, he made us feel at home. Some months ago I attended a conference in Nebraska--not a seance--that included a TR come-to-life. James W. Foote, like TR, from Long Island, N.Y., was the channeler. T

Anita Lam: Historic Taiwanese Village Threatened

Full preservation of the last walled village in an urban area is out of the question because it is too dilapidated, the Urban Renewal Authority says. A spokesman said this after eight of the remaining 13 owners of the 600-year -old Nga Tsin Wai village in Wong Tai Sin submitted a petition urging the government to press ahead with redevelopment. "The village is derelict, with appalling hygiene conditions ... Apart from the Tin Hau temple and the entrance archway, th

Amberin Zaman: Turkish Court Cancels Academic Conference On Armenian Massacre

A court Thursday ordered the cancellation of a conference where Turkish academics were expected to challenge the official version of the events surrounding the mass deaths among this nation's Armenians during and after World War I. The gathering, which was to be held today in Istanbul, was seen as a first and important step in Turkey's efforts to confront its troubled past as it seeks membership in the European Union. The case for blocking the conference was brought by

Andy Kershaw: The Significance Of The 1966 Heckling Of Bob Dylan

In the autumn of 1978, I arrived at Leeds University, already over- qualified in Dylanology. Another Bobsessive, I soon discovered, was living close by in our Headingley student ghetto, and he supplemented his grant by dealing Dylan bootlegs. One night he sold me a copy of an album that, according to the crudely stamped label, was a recording of Bob Dylan and The Hawks (later The Band) at the Royal Albert Hall on their notorious UK tour in May 1966. It was on these dates that Bob first appeared

Simon Jenkins: British Official Seeks Control Celebrations Of Historical Events

At last history hits pay dirt. For years it was pap for television. The nation's rulers needed scientists for guns, linguists for trade and economists for mistakes. History was for nuts and numismatists. Now up pops Charles Clarke jingling bags of gold. The home secretary has promised the prime minister that he will lock away for five years anyone who "glorifies, exalts or celebrates" a terrorist act committed in the past 20 years. He does not care if glorification was not meant. If so

Vincent Boland: Turkey's Bosphorus University Holds Conference On Armenian Genocide

There is no more sensitive issue in Turkey's 20thcentury history. The country's most celebrated writer faces jail for mentioning it. But this weekend Bosphorus University plans to go ahead with a conference, on the fate of Turkish Armenians at the end of the Ottoman empire, that has been delayed for months after a government minister accused the university of treason. The meeting will be the first to discuss the issue outside official control and will be closely watched for any hint

Toronto Surveys History of Business, Past Businessmen

History shows that coping with adversity is a key to success. Airline pioneer Max Ward, Bombardier CEO Laurent Beaudoin, and Four Seasons hotelier Issy Sharp all suffered early setbacks. "It's really important for students to know how many failures there are on the road to success," says Gerald Schwartz, CEO and founder of merchant bank Onex Corporation, and a Harvard MBA graduate. For Joseph Martin and his patrons, a sound grasp of lessons derive

Andrew Fraser: Australian Left And Right Scholars And The "White Australia Policy"

Forty years after Australian governments began to distance themselves from the White Australia Policy, advances in genetics, paleo-anthropology, psychology and medical science are placing the universalist doctrines of racial egalitarianism under serious pressure. A vast range of studies in several disciplines have revealed real and important differences between the races in cognitive and athletic ability, behaviour and temperament. [See author's footnote.] The time is clearly ripe for a courageo

Mark Hearn: Australian Historians Duel Over Nation's Identity

IN the 1990s, Australian history was preoccupied with defining the nation's past. In 1993, historian Geoffrey Blainey lamented the predominating influence of a "black armband" interpretation that assailed a previously optimistic tone. Australian historians had once patriotically given three cheers to a story of progress. Manning Clark "had done much to spread the gloomy view", he said. Blainey revealed himself as a pessimistic conservative, observing Australia's

Interview with Christopher Andrew About His New Book, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World

Q: Why did you choose The World Was Going Our Way as the title of this book? A: Because that is precisely what Moscow and in particular the KGB thought was happening a generation ago. Now that the Soviet Union has fallen apart, we all take for granted the inevitability of that collapse. It’s very difficult remembering how different things seemed thirty years ago. The U.S. had suffered a humiliating defeat in Vietnam which left it feeling more uncertain o

Stuart Schwartz: How Rebuilding Went After the Hurricane of 1928

... Let me finish here by returning to the San Felipe or Okeechobee hurricane [of 1928] with which I began because it takes us into the Twentieth century and because in the storm’s different impact in Florida and Puerto Rico we can see how some of themes I have suggested were played out. Leadership in both societies had a vision of an ideal future and in both places they were willing to use the disaster as tool to create an ideal future. B

Scott Martelle: Floods, Literature, and History

It was a different time and a different place, but Zora Neale Hurston touched on the present when she wrote "Their Eyes Were Watching God," about black life in South Florida, where even the miseries of the Great Depression were overwhelmed by the agonies unleashed by nature. A hurricane had come, Hurston wrote in 1937, and the levees that contained the Everglades' Lake Okeechobee couldn't stand up to the storm. The "beast had left its bed.... He seized hold of his dik

John Kalbfleisch: U-Boat Torpedo That Rallied Canada To WWII

"The grave of a 10-year-old girl on a hillside overlooking Hamilton Bay became the rallying point of thousands of Canadians today for prosecution of the war against Germany." - Gazette, Monday, Sept. 18, 1939 The little girl was named Margaret Hayworth, and two days before, in the presence of Premier Mitch Hepburn of Ontario, most of his cabinet, some federal MPs and hundreds of other mourners, some prominent, many just ordinary people, she was laid to rest. She was the fi

Jim Castagnera: America's First Bona Fide Mass Murderer

Holy Cross Cemetery is a mere half dozen miles from my Havertown home… a quick drive down Lansdowne Avenue. An early burial ground of the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Holy Cross plays host to hundreds, if not thousands, of Irish and Italian immigrants; a common inscription on many a weathered tombstone reads something like, “Born County Cork 1846.” Had I not taken a book called “The Devil in the White City” with me to the Shore this summer, I mi

Stuart Silverstein: Caltech Oral History Project Catalogues Scientists' Lives

Ever heard the story about Albert Einstein and the Long Beach earthquake of 1933? Einstein, a visiting professor at Caltech at the time, was walking across campus with an earthquake expert, Beno Gutenberg. They even were talking about seismic research. But when the magnitude-6.4 temblor struck, the absent-minded scientists were so engrossed in conversation that neither noticed the shaking. "There was an earthquake someplace?" Gutenberg, a partner with Charles

Irish Emigration Project Shines Light On Exiles

A proposal to establish a centre for emigration studies in Co Mayo was mooted by council cathaoirleach Henry Kenny (FG) at the weekend. Cllr Kenny, a brother of the Fine Gael leader, was officiating at the launch in Castlebar of Emile - a Culture 2000 project involving Sweden, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic and Ireland. The US ambassador to Ireland, James C Kenny, whose grandparents emigrated from Mayo in 1907, was a special guest. The project was simultaneously laun

Dave Curtin: Slain Leadville Marshall, Duggan, To Get Tombstone

Martin "Mart" Duggan was a hard-drinking Indian fighter, saloon bouncer and legendary marshal of Leadville. Yet since his murder on an early spring morning in 1888, Duggan has lain in an unmarked grave in Denver's Riverside Cemetery. Not for much longer. On Saturday night, at a benefit in Leadville's Tabor Opera House, a group of local history buffs raised $2,200 toward completing a headstone for Duggan. "This guy is an unsung he

Joan Russell: A Light Reflection On The History Of The Sandwich

A popular tale says the first man to eat a sandwich was a gambler who lived in 18th-century England. John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich, it was said, was so busy gambling he didn't have time to eat, so he would order his servant to make him a treat. The servant put beef between two slices of bread and gave it to his master. In reality, according to his biographer, the Earl of Sandwich was probably so busy working as a politician that he ate at his desk. Today sandwiches are a sta

William Underwood: War Responsibility in a Japanese College Classroom

"August 6, 1945: Hiroshima. August 9, 1945: Nagasaki." I wrote the words on the classroom whiteboard in large letters. Then I crossed out both dates and places with a big red X. "Not true," I declared. "The atomic bombings never happened. A total fabrication." My university students were dumbstruck. We stared at each other in silence for a long moment. All right, I conceded, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed by American warplanes 60 years ago. But only

Lawrence Goldstone: The White Washing of American History

[Lawrence Goldstone is the author, most recently, of "Dark Bargain: Slavery, Profits and the Struggle for the Constitution" (Walker, October 2005).] Conventional wisdom in publishing these days holds that, in order to be commercial, any book on the founding of the United States has to be "a story of triumph," an 18th century "Seabiscuit." Muddying the picture by suggesting, for example, that slavery had a lot more to do with the forging of the Con