Roundup: Talking About History

Michael Oren: "Downfall" Is About Letting Germans Off the Hook

Ticket lines for movies are rare in Israel, and rarer still for features that have already been showing for five weeks, and unprecedented for a German production centered on the character of Adolf Hitler. Yet Israelis are still lining up to see Oliver Hirschbiegel's tenebrous docudrama about the Third Reich's closing days, Der Untergang--The Downfall. The film, which has won several German awards and has been nominated for an Oscar, triggered nervous debate in Europe o

Christopher Clausen: Sometmes History LIberates, Sometimes It Strangles

[Christopher Clausen is professor of English at Pennsylvania State University. His most recent book is Faded Mosaic: The Emergence of Post-Cultural America (2000).] ... For Americans whose ancestors came to these shores after 1865, the Civil War has always been someone else’s history, never an intergenerational memory. Yet even—or perhaps especially—those who have no veterans in their family tree often try to establish links, connections that are no less revealing for bei

George F. Will: I Didn't Give Ronald Reagan Jimmy Carter's Debate Briefing Book

A quarter of a century has passed since 44 states said "No, thanks" to Jimmy Carter's offer to serve a second term, yet he still evidently thinks his loss is explained not by foreign policy debacles, such as invading Iran with eight helicopters, and a misery index -- inflation plus unemployment -- of 22, almost triple today's index. Rather, he seems to think approximately this:Ronald Reagan won because he won the only debate. He won it not because of Carter's

Gary Younge: On the Fight Between Dershowitz and Finkelstein

In his landmark book, Democracy in America, the 19th-century French intellectual Alexis de Tocqueville commented on the fever pitch to which American polemics can often ascend. In a chapter entitled Why American Writers and Speakers Are Often Bombastic, he wrote: "I have often noticed that the Americans whose language when talking business is clear and dry ... easily turn bombastic when they attempt a poetic style ... Writers for their part almost always pander to this propensity ... they i

Andrew M. McGreevy: Arlington National Cemetery and Yasukuni Jinja ... History, Memory, and the Sacred

[Andrew M. McGreevy teaches East Asian and non-Western history courses at Ohio University-Lancaster. His interest in this article was prompted by visits to American, Japanese and Russian military memorials and museums. He is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. Correspondence is invited at: mcgreevy@ohio.edu] Arlington National Cemetery and Yasukuni Jinja (The Shrine of the Peaceful Land) are symbols of the histories of the United States of America and Japan. Arling

Peter s. Canellos: 60 Years After Hiroshima, America Still Lives In Fear

... Amazingly, of all the horrible genies let out of their bottles during World War II from genocide to totalitarianism to German and Japanese aggression the threat of nuclear annihilation, ushered in by the United States, seems to have emerged as the most pressing worry for Americans today. In honor of the anniversary of the atomic bombings, Time magazine ran gritty portraits of survivors, the shock still etched in their faces. The men and women offered their stories how they happe

John Lukacs: Why They Dropped; The Bomb It Was War

For six decades, historians, commentators and apologists have tried to foist a weighty guilt complex upon the nation's collective subconscious while at the same time attempting to balance President Harry S. Truman's decision to use America's fledgling atomic arsenal to end the war as the moral equivalent of the Nazi holocaust. In doing so, they continue to display not only a misunderstanding of the myriad exigencies and factors which influenced Truman's decision, but also a profound

Eric Alterman: Remembering What Reagan Did in Guatemala

Eric Alterman, on his blog (June 16, 2004):Remember how loveable and optimistic Ronald Reagan was? Remember how he did nothing but make us feel good about ourselves and restore respect for America; our moral values and our position of leadership in the world? I was reading the galley pages of When Presi

Douglas Brinkley: The Vital Role of the Mississippi in America's History

Kevin Duchschere,  in the Pittsburgh Star Tribune (July 2, 2004): The Upper Mississippi is"the most beautiful part" of the entire river, according to Douglas Brinkley, even if it's not as famous as the lower half from Missouri to New Orleans.Brinkley ought to know. One of the most prolific of U.S. historians, he traveled the river three yea

Fred Kaplan: Reagan Was Responsible for the Rise of Osama bin Laden

Fred Kaplan, in Slate (June 10, 2004):Earlier this week, I cited recently declassified documents to show that Ronald Reagan did indeed play a major role in ending the Cold War. Now it's time to note that a similar set of

Slate: Reagan Wasn't Half as Conservative as He Seemed

Timothy Noah, in Slate (June 7, 2004):I've registered as a Republican exactly once in my life. The year was 1980, and Ronald Reagan, who died today at the age of 93, was seeking the GOP nomination for president. Teddy Kennedy was challenging President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination, and in Massachusetts, where I then lived, Kennedy was certain to win the primary. Better to cast my vote where it coul

William Blum: Reagan Didn't End the Cold War

William Blum, the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, in Counterpunch (June 7, 2004):Ronald Reagan's biggest crimes were the bloody military actions to suppress social and political change in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Afghanistan, but I'd like to deal here with the media's gushing about Reagan's supposed role in ending the cold war. In actuali

NYT: Those Reagan Deficits

David E. Rosenbaum, in the NYT (June 10, 2004):... In his 1980 campaign, Mr. Reagan promised to reduce taxes, increase military spending and balance the budget mostly by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the government. The first two promises were achieved in his first term. In 1981, Congress approved a 25 percent reduction in income taxes and an increas

Fred Greenstein: Reagan's Style of Politics and Governing

Fred Greenstein, in the Political Science Quarterly and reprinted by TomPaine.com (2000):Ronald Reagan presents an interpretative puzzle. Although he was innocent of much that went on in his own presidency, he managed to be a powerful force in his times. Early in his first term, Reagan presided over a fundamental reorientation of his nation's domestic policies, and in his second term, he played a critical part in the peaceful termination of a global conflic

WSJ: The Real Lessons of WW II

Editorial, in the WSJ (June 4, 2004):This Sunday, Gerhard Schroeder will become the first German Chancellor to take part in a D-Day ceremony. It will mark the final chapter of the liberation of Europe that began 60 years ago and only belatedly reached Eastern Europe. Mr. Schroeder's participation isn't completely uncontroversial. Some Allied war veterans are furious and a few refuse to take part in the celebrations.We have to respect the feelings of t

How Other Memorials Have Been Greeted

Maria Puente, in USA Today, puttng into perspective the many criticisms of the new WW II memorial on the Mall (May 20, 2004):Memorial building in America is a tendentious business. "Never was a memorial yet erected that was not subject to criticism," said Rep. John Boylan, D-N.Y. And that was in 1937. Here's what happened when some of America's most important memorials were proposed: Washington Monument (1884) Architect Robert Mills

Charles Sumner Made the Case Against Segregated Schools a Century Before Brown

Suzanne Sataline, in the Boston Globe (May 9, 2004)In a footnote in the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the Supreme Court reported that the "separate but equal" doctrine it was overturning in public education "apparently originated" in an 1849 ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court in a Massachusetts case, Roberts v. City of Boston. "For Boston, it was the first attempt to integrate the schools," said Thomas O

The Atlantic Falls for a Faux Kennedy Conspiracy Number

The case of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is complicated, and it is unwise to go gaga over every bit of new information, taken in isolation. That is what the History Channel did in its reckless and now withdrawn feature accusing Lyndon Johnson of having authored the plot. And it is unfortunately also what Max Holland does in the Atlantic's June issue in reporting on the release of Johnson's 1967 telephone conversations related to the killing. Holland focuses on a conversa

Indonesians Are Rewriting the History Books Now that They Are Free (But Limits Remain)

Ellen Nakashima, in the Washington Post (April 24, 2004):The Communist Party did it. For more than three decades, that was the received wisdom in Indonesian classrooms concerning the night of Sept. 30, 1965, when six generals and a lieutenant said to be plotting against President Sukarno were kidnapped and murdered, their bodies stuffed down a well.But

The WW II Memorial--Yes, It Works

Benjamin Forgey, in the Wash Post (April 25, 204):The best things about the National World War II Memorial are its precise placement on the Mall and the abiding sense of place that comes with the honored location. As sensitively designed by architect Friedrich St. Florian, the memorial frames majestic views of the Lincoln Memorial to the west and