Roundup: Talking About History

June 19, 2004

Reagan and Higher Education

from the Chronicle of Higher Education (June 18 2004): Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, who was buried last week, had an often-adversarial relationship with higher education, both as president and as governor of California. To achieve one of his major goals as president -- the reduction of federal spending -- Mr. Reagan proposed numerous cutbacks in funds for colleges, although m

June 19, 2004

NPR Discussion: Clinton's Memoirs

National Public Radio (June 18 2004): ANCHORS: STEVE INSKEEP REPORTERS: JUAN WILLIAMS STEVE INSKEEP, host: Here in the United States, former President Bill Clinton releases his memoirs next week after years of anticipation and a carefully controlled publicity campaign. Publisher Alfred A. Knopf has kept the book away from reviewers and controlled the release of advance information--all part of an effort to build up anticipation for the book itself. Here's NPR se

June 18, 2004

Reagan Allied Pro-Life Catholics and Protestants

Michael McGough, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (June 14, 2004): ...Reagan was raised in his mother's Protestant faith rather than in the Catholicism of his father. What, one wonders, would his mother have thought about a funeral for her son at which an Irish tenor sang "Ave Maria" as well as "Amazing Grace"? Of course, it would be too much to credit Ronald Reagan with a convergence in forms of worship that began even before the Second V

June 18, 2004

Alger Hiss: The Cold War Figure He Won't Slip Queitly Away

Michael Ollove, in the Balt Sun (June 13, 2004): Alger Hiss won't go away. No matter that his conviction was more than half a century in the past. That the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union have vanished. That Hiss himself -- traitor or martyr -- is nearly eight years dead. Somehow, some way, Alger Hiss manages to slip back into the public conversation. So here he

June 18, 2004

New Study: The Personality Traits of Successful Presidents

Steve Rubenzer, in the Boston Globe (June 13, 2004): Harry Truman said that being dumb was just about the worst thing for a president. Was he right? Or are there other personality traits that can predict the success of th

June 18, 2004

Why the World Forgot the Greatest NYC Disaster Before 9-11

Philip Dray, an historian and co-producer, with Hank Linhart, the chairperson of media arts at Pratt Institutue, of "Fearful Visitation: New York's Great Steamboat Fire of 1904"; in Newsday (June 15, 2004):A city still determining how best to memorialize the terror attacks of 9/11 may find special meaning in today's 100th anniversary observance of the worst previous disaster in New York City's history: the burning of the steamboat General Slocum in the East Riv

June 18, 2004

The Palestinians Are Rewriting History

Ahron Bregman, the author of Israel's Wars: A History Since 1947, in Newsday (June 16, 2004): ...Mixing facts and fiction and rewriting the history of the Holy Land is part of the Palestinians' struggle against Israel and part of their negotiating tactics. In fact, quite recently, during the July 2000 Camp David summit, Arafat, who during the summit failed to put on the table a single constructive plan for peace, did come up with an interesting suggestion. U.S. envoy Dennis

June 18, 2004

Put Reagan on the Dime?

Bill Adair, in the St. Petersburg Times (June 14, 2004): After a week of tributes and eulogies to President Ronald Reagan, his admirers plan to move quickly with a proposal to put his face on coins or currency. Putting Reagan on the $10 or $20 bill has the strongest backing right now. But that could prompt an unusual battle pitting Reaganites against supporters of Andrew Jackson, the populist president on the $20, or against the fans of Alexander Hamilton, t

June 18, 2004

So Reagan's Policies Harmed Blacks?

Larry Elder, a libertarian talk show host, in frontpagemag.com (June 18, 2004): "Ronald Reagan 'tortured' blacks."One Sunday morning, as I drove to my local tennis court to play a match, I heard a black radio commentator give that assessment of the now late, great 40th president. Imagine my conflict. After all, here I am, about to selfishly work on my backhand, while having allowed

June 18, 2004

Lynne Cheney: Loves History (But also Loves the No Child Left Behind Act, which Ignores History)

Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, in Education Week (June 16, 2004):... While [Lynne V.] Cheney’s professional record has covered a broad range of social and cultural issues, it is her work in the area of history education that has earned her a reputation for speaking her mind. That work has won her some measure of admiration, even among those who do not subscribe to her views. But it has also drawn the most criticism. "Her emphasis on history/social studies e

June 17, 2004

New Collection Re-evaluates Presidents

David J. Foster, in the News Gleaner (June 17 2004): Even the most buoyant Reagan booster must have watched last week's revisionism in disbelief. While conservatives have long listed President Reagan among the near great presidents, for restoring the country's faith itself while pushing Communism into the ash heap of history, suddenly former foes, like Ted Kennedy a

June 17, 2004

Centennial: James Joyce's Bloomsday

Stephen Schwartz, in the Weekly Standard (June 16 2004): NELSON ROCKEFELLER is alleged to have described the artwork of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, famously difficult classics painted shortly after the Second World War, as"free-enterprise painting." And there, in microcosm, we find the conundrum that has bedeviled certain conservative intellectuals for several generations: What should o

June 17, 2004

Patrick Buchanan: Taking Aim at the So-Called Great Presidents

Patrick Buchanan, in his column (June 16, 2004):With the passing of President Reagan, historians, scholars and journalists have again taken to rating our presidents. Invariably, greatness is ascribed to only three: Washington, Lincoln and FDR. Which reveals as much about American historians, scholars and journalists as it does about American presidents. Certainly, Wash

June 15, 2004

Presidential Memoirs Usually Fall Flat

Mark Perry, a vice president of Jefferson Waterman International, a Washington lobbying firm, and author of Grant and Twain: The Story of a Friendship That Changed America; in the Alameda Times-Star (June 15, 2004): James Buchanan, the first president to write his memoirs, could have used a ghostwriter. Published in 1866, the book is as forgettable as his presidency. It sold poorly, although the ca

June 15, 2004

Richard Norton Smith: Reagan's Legacy

Richard Norton Smith, in the Chicago Trib (June 11, 2004):Of course he was controversial, even polarizing, a chief executive whose policies will be debated for decades to come. But that only proves how much he mattered. Ronald Reagan was a man of paradoxes: a New Deal liberal turned Goldwater conservative. In a final paradox, this man who has been largely invisible for a

June 15, 2004

Jude Wanniski: Why Harding Was a Great President

Jude Wanniski, Reagan economics advisor, on his website (June 13, 2004): All weekend I've been watching journalists debating whether Ronald Reagan was"one of the greatest" Presidents or just a"great" President, with a few votes for him being just average. I've already voted in this space for Reagan being the best president of the century, for reasons I stated last week. What disturbs me is seeing the report

June 14, 2004

Lewis Gould: Reagan May or May Not Appear as Heroic in the Future as He Does Right Now

Lewis Gould, in the Wash Post (June 13, 2004): ... For Reagan partisans, the motives [for celebrating his life and administration this past week] are obvious. This will be their last chance to make the case for their hero's greatness before a national audience. The same team that stage-managed Reagan's most famous moments in office choreographed last week's"legacy-building event," as one f

June 14, 2004

Edmund Morris on Reagan's Passing

From the CBS Morning News (June 7, 2004): HANNAH STORM: As Ronald Reagan's biographer, Edmund Morris spent more than 14 years researching and writing about the president's life. Morris had access to personal letters and diaries and conducted multiple interviews with family and friends, as well as the president himself as he wrote the book,"Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan." Edmund Morris, good morning. Mr. EDMUND MORRIS (

June 12, 2004

Gorbachev: No One Won the Cold War, We All Lost

Robert G. Kaiser, recounting an interview with Mikhail Gorbachev following Reagan's funeral; in the Wash Post (June 11, 2004):... Gorbachev brusquely dismissed the suggestion that Reagan had intimidated either him or the Soviet Union, or forced them to make concessions. Was it accurate to say that Reagan won the Cold War? "That's not serious," Gorbachev said,

June 11, 2004

John Lewis Gaddis: Reagan Was No Lightweight

John Lewis Gaddis, in a lecture at George Washington University (April 2004): The principal point of which I wish to persuade you may come as something of a surprise: it is that Ronald Reagan – not his advisers, but Reagan himself – deserves to be ranked alongside Kennan, Nitze, Eisenhower, Dulles, Rostow, Nixon and Kissinger as a serious strategist of containment. I