Roundup: Talking About History

April 7, 2004

How an American's View of History Changed After Living in Nicaragua

Presbyterian Missionary Stephen Herrick, in the PCUSA newsletter (April 7, 2004):As I reflect on two and a half years of living in Nicaragua, it occurs to me that I've learned a lot about history. Nicaraguan history is colorful - full of dictators like Zelaya and Somoza, revolutionaries like Sandino and Fonseca, and of course, repeated invasions by the U.S. Marines.But that isn't what I mea

April 6, 2004

Did the Jews Really Flee Egypt for the Holy Land?

Richard N. Ostling, in the Associated Press (April 3, 2004):There's been unending debate about whether the biblical story of the Exodus from Egypt -- which Jews commemorate each year at Passover (which begins at sundown Monday) -- was an actual event, a national legend or a blend. Some scholarly doubts about the literal history are reflected in the new "Jewish Study Bible" (Oxford University Press, $40), the first one-volume commentary on the

April 6, 2004

The Saudis Are Subsidizing Middle East Studies Across the U.S.

Lee Kaplan, in frontpagemag.com (April 5, 2004):... Saudi infiltration works on several levels. By creating new Middle East Studies Centers and such endowed chairs on campuses across the US, the Saudis are able to influence the curriculum taught to the next generation of American students about the Middle East situation as taught at Saudi-funded madrassas both here and abroad. That

March 31, 2004

April Fools Hoaxes: Taco Bell Buys the Liberty Bell

From a review of major April Fools hoaxes, published by National Geographic (March 31, 2004): On April 1, 1996, readers in five major U.S. cities opened their newspapers to learn from a full page announcement that the Taco Bell Corporation had purchased the Liberty Bell from the U.S. government. The announcement reported that the company was relocating the historic bell from Philadelphia,

March 31, 2004

The Mayor of Hiroshima Remembers Hiroshima

Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba delivered this address (published in Japan Focus,to the inaugural conference of the Asia office of UNITAR in Hiroshima on November 17, 2003:We have long continued our effort to raise public awareness of the need to abolish nuclear weapons by conveying to the world the facts of the atomic bombing and the message born out of the suffering and struggles o

March 31, 2004

John Taylor: 30 Years After Watergate -- What We Need to Remember

John Taylor, executive director of the NIxon Foundation (March 29, 2004), at a conference held in memory of Watergate at the Lou Frey Institute of Politics & Government at the University of Central Florida in Orlando:Our gathering this week is timely indeed – and not just because of the approaching anniversary of the end of the Nixon Administration. During the rec

March 24, 2004

Brown University Taking Heat for even Considering Slavery Reparations

Alan Power, in the Guardian (March 23, 2004):One of the buildings at the Ivy League Brown University bears a plaque that says: "Erected in 1822 by Nicholas Brown." What it does not add is "with money his family made from the slave trade". Rikki Baldwin, 18, a first-year student walking into the building, wears a thoughtful expression. "It's history, it's ugly," she says. "Mmm, slavery. It's bad, but it's not this g

March 24, 2004

Historians Who Are Putting 9-11 into Perspective

Robert Sibley, in the Ottawa Citizen (March 21, 2004):If you read only one book on this first anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, it should be be Harris's Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of History (Free Press). Harris has been described as "the philosopher of 9/11," and rightly so. He is one of a few scholars and commentators who recognize that 9/11 was what the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel called a "world-hi

March 24, 2004

Is William Rehnquist Kidding Himself or Us? His Book on the Election of 1876 Isn't About the Election of 2000?

Adam Cohen, in the NYT (March 21, 2004):The presidential elections of 1876 and 2000 have the sort of eerie parallels that make amateur historians' pulses race. Both ended in a deadlock, with Florida holding the key. Each time, Florida officials who were partisan Republicans gave the state's electoral votes to the Republican candidate, and Democrats challenged the result. Both challenges were decided by a single vote, cast by a Republican Supreme Court justi

March 24, 2004

Jack Valenti: When Filmmakers Grossly Distory History

Jack Valenti, in the Wash Post (March 20, 2004):The blending of a fragment of fact into a volume of fiction is becoming a staple of so-called docudramas. Recently the History Channel ran a "documentary" wherein the author of a book from which the film was taken, in full close-up, says without ambiguity that Lyndon Johnson killed President Kennedy and ordered t

March 24, 2004

How Wellington Covered Up the Role the Germans Played in His Victory

Jack Malvern, in the London Times (March 20, 2004):THE Duke of Wellington's victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo was as much a German as a British triumph, according to a leading historian who has discovered evidence of a cover-up. The truth lies in the story of the official model of the battle, first revealed to the public in 1838, that showed 48,000 soldiers coming to the aid of the British Army. When the model was displayed for the

March 24, 2004

How A Nazi Document Shredder Became America's Most Valuable Spy

Tony Paterson, in the London Independent (March 20, 2004):To outsiders Fitz Kolbe was a typically correct Nazi official. The balding, impish German who liked wearing lederhosen, worked as a mere bureaucrat in Adolf Hitler's Foreign Ministry for most of the Second World War, where he was employed shredding documents. Yet for what was later to become the CIA, Fritz Kolbe was and still is "the most important spy of the Second World War". K

March 23, 2004

Trotskyism and Neoconservatives: No Link

Bill King, who has a BA in History and Sociology from Simon Fraser University and is a former trader for one of Canada's major banks; his articles have appeared at enterstageright.com and frontpagemag.com. In enterstageright (March 22, 2004): In one of the first in-depth studies written about neoconservatism in the 1970s, The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing America's Politics (1

March 23, 2004

Censoring History in Russia

Masha Lipman, editor of the Carnegie Moscow Center's Pro et Contra Journal, in the Wash Post(March 21, 2004): Rewriting history was an important part of the Bolshevik project to remake the world. Throughout the decades of Communist rule, the U.S.S.R. was a country with an unpredictable past: Russia's -- and in fact the world's -- history was continuously being reshaped by Communi

March 23, 2004

Censoring History in India

Vaishnavi C. Sekhar, in the Times of London (March 22, 2004): The next time state BJP leaders want to ban a book, they might want to think about reading it thoroughly. Earlier this week, BJP leader and former deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde had called for a ban on the floor of the assembly on Jawaharlal Nehru's book Discovery of India , alleging that some editions contained disparaging rema

March 22, 2004

Ike's Plan to Let Business Leaders Take Over the Country in the Event of a Catastrophic Attack

Hope Ye, for the Associated Press (March 20, 2004): A few weeks after the Soviets launched the first manmade satellite in 1957, shattering America's sense of security, CBS President Frank Stanton was summoned to the White House to see President Eisenhower. Stanton knew his friend was agonizing over how to respond to Sputnik and the terrorizing thought th

March 22, 2004

Jacquelyn Hall: Don't Know History: Here's Why

Jacquelyn Hall, president of the Organization of American Historians and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, in the Boston Globe (March 20, 2004):ARE TODAY'S students knuckleheads when it comes to American history? Is democracy endangered as a result? Pointing to the dismal results of the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, educational watchdogs across the political spectrum say yes. As president of the Org

March 20, 2004

New View Taking Shape of George Washington's Mother

Washington Post 3-14-04Michelle Boorstein Washington Post Staff WriterBill and Annie Smith, strolling past the stately, stone entry pillars of Mary Washington College, are typical of Fredericksburg residents in their enthusiasm for the school's namesake: She wears an "MWC" sweatshirt, and his car has a bumper sticker that says, "Mary Wash." They're also typical in another way: They don't know much about her. &quo

March 20, 2004

Who Killed Jesus? Don't Trust the Gospels

Sunday Mail (Queensland, Australia) 3-14-04Christopher Morgan and Stuart Wavell[I]s the Bible itself historically reliable? A study of biblical texts shows that [Mel] Gibson's account is rooted in the scriptures.The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are its main sources of material.Those chroniclers leave no doubt about who, in their opinion, was responsible for Christ's death -- the Jewish leaders.The film begins with Christ's

March 20, 2004

State History Standards Make the U.S. the Hero of Every Tale

Minn. Star Tribune 3-17-04Greg Gaut Teacher of European and Russian history at St. Mary's University of Minnesota in Winona. If the proposed K-12 social studies standards are approved in their present form, someday soon a bright high school senior will face an exam question about the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. The student will consider her dilemma, and then