Roundup: Talking About History

April 22, 2005

Nobukatsu Fujioka: What the Founder of the Textbook Reform Movement Wants Students to Learn

Following is an excerpt from a speech by Professor Nobukatsu Fujioka, professor of education at Tokyo University, and Vice-Chairman of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform. It was delivered before the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on Feb. 25, 1999. Professor Fujioka is recognized as the leader in the movement to make Japan's textbooks more patriotic: Thank you very much for your kind introduction.

April 21, 2005

Kenneth Woodward: Pope Benedict Once Was Progressive--What Changed Him Were the Student Riots of the 60s

Kenneth Woodward, in the WSJ (4-21-05):[Mr. Woodward is a contributing editor at Newsweek, where he served as Religion Editor for 38 years. He is the author, most recently, of "The Book of Miracles: The Meaning of the Miracle Stories in Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam" (Simon & Schuster, 2001), and is currently writing a book on American religion an

April 20, 2005

Theodore K. Rabb: No Child Left Behind Is Hurting History

Theodore K. Rabb, in the Boston Globe (4-18-05): Patriots Day, April 19 th, is a date that ought to have particular resonance at this juncture in the history of the Republic. It commemorates the beginning of our first war: the day in 1775 when the first shots were fired, in Concord, on America’s path to independence. If in recent years the most widely reported event of that day has been the Boston Marathon, it is surely time to put its larger meaning front and center in

April 20, 2005

Edward Rothstein: The New Lincoln Museum ... History Simplified

Edward Rothstein, in the NYT (4-19-05):... The museum literature points out that its goal"is not to fully explain all of the issues that confronted Lincoln but to inspire in the visitor a deep sense of personal connection and empathy with the man." And indeed, there is something almost eerily lifelike about many of the museum's figures, which were created using photographs

April 19, 2005

Senator Robert C. Byrd: The Importance of History Education

Remarks of Sen. Byrd at a news conference held by the National Council for History Education (4-19-05) to "Make History Strong in Our Schools": Good afternoon. I thank you, Ms. Anderson and the National Council for History Education, for hosting today's "Make History Strong in Our Schools" Day event to raise awareness of the importance of history education in the Nation's schools. I am heartened by everyone's attendance today. I am pleased at the oppor

April 19, 2005

AP: High and Low Points in the History of the Papacy

From the Associated Press account published at news24 website (4-17-05):The Associated Press looked into some of the highlights and low points from nearly 20 centuries of papal history and came up with this list. Among the sources for the research was"Lives of the Popes" (HarperSanFrancisco) by the Rev. Richard P. McBrien: FIRST POPE: The Apostle Peter. LONGEST RE

April 19, 2005

Benjamin Robertson: A Frontlines Report of the Chinese Protests of Japanese Textbooks

Benjamin Robertson, in the WSJ (4-18-05): One Chinese protester at last week's anti-Japan demonstrations delighted in scuffling with the police every time they half-heartedly tried to block the road. The high-school dropout with dreadlocked hair looked like your typical anti-establishment rebel. But then, what was such a "rebel" doing at a flag-waving nationalist rally?

April 19, 2005

Robin Wilson: Are Black Studies Programs Obsolete?

Robin Wilson, in the Chronicle of Higher Ed (4-18-05):... Black-studies programs at many public universities are having trouble attracting students and are suffering from budget cuts that have whittled down their faculty ranks. Meanwhile, classes with African-American perspectives are cropping up in departments like history, women's studies, and English, diluting the need, some say, for separate black-

April 18, 2005

Bob Herbert: FDR's Radical Vision for America

Bob Herbert, in the NYT (4-18-05): Last week--April 12, to be exact - was the 60th anniversary of the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. "I have a terrific headache," he said, before collapsing at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Ga. He died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage on the 83rd day of his fourth term as president. His hold on the nation was such that most Americans, stunned by the annou

April 16, 2005

Linda Greenhouse: The Evolution of Justice Blackmun (He Wasn't Always Sensitive to Women's Rights)

Linda Greenhouse, in the NYT (4-10-05): The battle over abortion, now flaring again with the prospect of change at the Supreme Court, has been raging for so long that its origins have been largely lost to time and myth. During the 32 years since the court decided Roe v. Wade, the right to abortion has become so entwined, both in political discourse and in the public mind, with women's rights in general that it is tempting to assume that the middle-aged men who voted in 1973 to overturn state

April 16, 2005

Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin: If Only Robert Oppenheimer Had Got His Way on Nukes We Wouldn't Have to Worry About Bin Laden Getting Them

Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin, in the Nation (4-25-05): [The authors recently wrote a biography of Oppenheimer.] In his inter

April 15, 2005

David Oshinsky: The Many People Who Helped End Polio in America

David Oshinsky, in the LAT (4-10-05): [David M. Oshinsky is a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of"Polio: An American Story," published this month by Oxford University Press.]

April 13, 2005

Randy Boswell: : Hero of German Film Was Linked to Atrocity

Randy Boswell, in the Montreal Gazette (4-11-05): Downfall, an Oscar-nominated German film about the last days of the Third Reich, is being condemned by historians for what they call its "sympathetic" portrayal of the Nazi general believed to have ordered the murders of dozens of Canadian prisoners during the invasion of Normandy. Wilhelm Mohnke, who died in 2001 in Germany after failed efforts by Canadian investigators to have him tried for war crimes, wa

April 13, 2005

Bill Broadway: Papal Succession Stirs Hope for Real Change

Bill Broadway, in the Washington Post (4-9-05): As the College of Cardinals prepares to convene April 18 to elect a new leader, U.S. Catholics know there is little chance that one of their own will succeed Pope John Paul II. Yet many hope the new pontiff will hear cries for change in how the Vatican operates. They want a leader who will encourage greater communication among all levels of the hierarchical church, a "democratization" that ranges from the

April 13, 2005

Marc Nadeau: The Pope and the Presidents

Marc Nadeau, in the Ottawa Citizen (4-9-05): [Marc Nadeau is a PhD student in theology at the Universite de Sherbrooke ( Quebec), where he researches the influence of religion in the administration of George W. Bush.] John Paul II's pontificate revamped, as one of its major achievements, a rather modest relationship between the Vatican and the United States. Generally distant from one another, the two states interacted sparsely during the decades following the Italian

April 12, 2005

Daniel Pipes: Conservative Professors, an Endangered Species

Daniel Pipes, in the NY Sun (4-12-05):In a surprisingly fine editorial last week about the crisis at Columbia University, the New York Times wrote that a university report investigating studen

April 12, 2005

Kenneth L. Woodward: Why the Press Keeps Missing the Papal Succession Story

Kenneth L. Woodward, in the NYT (4-11-05):[Kenneth L. Woodward, a contributing editor at Newsweek, is working on a book about religion and American culture since 1950.]ACCORDING to an old Vatican proverb, popes come and go but the Roman Curia remains. The latter can be said of the news media as well. In the long pause between papacies, journalists have two tasks: the first is to assess the

April 12, 2005

Khaleej Times of Dubai: Sinners Among the Popes

From the Khaleej Times of Dubai, United Arab Emirates (4-11-05):They’ve plotted and deceived, they’ve been warlike, corrupt and power-hungry and they’ve sired children they shamelessly promoted: the history of popes, as cardinals mull who will succeed John Paul II, is decidedly murky.Such accusations can in no way be leve

April 12, 2005

How the Japanese Textbooks Are Distorting History

Editorial from the Asahi Shimbum, Tokyo reprinted by the Toronto Star (4-11-05):Japan's education ministry has finished screening textbooks to be used by junior high school students beginning with the next scholastic year. Among those approved are revised history and civics textbooks written under the supervision of t

April 12, 2005

WSJ Editorial: China Should Be Honest About Its Past Before It Gives a Lecture to Japan

Editorial in the WSJ (4-11-05):Tiananmen Square's 1989 peaceful demonstrations were a violent uprising; Tibet had no claim to independence when China invaded in 1951; millions of Chinese did not die during the famine caused by the Great Leap Forward; the United States started the Korean War by invading the peninsula; special FBI agents repress American workers.