Roundup: Talking About History

March 3, 2004

Historian Says the Swiss Have to Come to Terms with "Verdingkinder"--The Discarded Children Who Were Given Away or Sold Until the 1950s

Renat Künzi, in NZZ Online (Feb. 29, 2004): Slave labour, beatings, sexual abuse, fear and isolation were the norm for thousands of “Verdingkinder”, or"discarded children", who were given away or sold as cheap labour until the 1950s. Historian Marco Leuenberger told swissinfo that the time has come for reappraisal of this dark episode. Leuenberger was ten years old when his father

March 2, 2004

It's Time for Mormon History to Come into Its Own

David Clark Knowlton, associate professor of anthropology at Utah Valley State College, in the Salt Lake Tribune (Feb. 29, 2004): The controversies stemming from the University of Utah History Department's attempt to fill the position vacated by the untimely death of Dean L. May raise issues of consequence to all of us. While the members of that department have to make the often-diff

March 2, 2004

St. Patrick's Day: His Real Story

Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin, in emediawire (March 2004): On March 17, Irish people all over the world celebrate the patron who won the souls of their ancestors over fifteen hundred years ago. Celebrated in America since at least 1737, St. Patrick is still one of the most illustrious of the uncanonised saints in the Christian pantheon. An icon to schools and dance halls, public buildings a

March 2, 2004

Nixon Library: There's a New Nixon

From the official newsletter of the Nixon Library & Birthplace (March 1, 2004): There's yet another “new Nixon.” Nixon Milner, born to Todd and Lisa Milner, arrived at 9:30 p.m. on December 18, 2003. With jet-black hair and deep blue eyes, this healthy newborn is one of Sydney, Australia's newest citizens. The Nixon name is no coincidence. Todd, and equity dealer, and Lisa, an accountant, indeed named their baby after America's 37 th President. The

March 2, 2004

Dresden Firebombing: The Revisionist View

Laura Miller, in Salon (March 1, 2004): Most Americans -- at least, the ones who aren't addicted to the History Channel -- know about the bombing of Dresden in 1945 from Kurt Vonnegut's bestselling novel"Slaughterhouse-Five," based on Vonnegut's own experiences as a prisoner of war. The attack is still a touchstone for the moral perils of war. Frederick Taylor, a British historian whose new book

February 27, 2004

Monitors for Middle East Studies? Sounds Like an Attack on the Left

Alisa Solomon, in the Village Voice (Feb. 25-March 2, 2004): In a gesture that consolidates the 1990s culture wars, the post-9-11 chill on dissent, and the relentlessness of hawkishly pro-Israel lobbying, the U.S. House voted unanimously last fall to establish an advisory board to monitor how effectively campus international studies centers serve"national needs relat

February 27, 2004

New Study: High School History Textbooks Are Inadequate

Chester E. Finn, Jr., on the website of the Fordham Institute; from the foreword to A Consumer's Guide to High School History Textbooks (Feb. 2004): Within days of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, major textbook publishers began scrambling to revise their high school history texts to include information about 9/11. An understandable, even commendable impulse, but it went badly. Because these hasty updates or supplements had to be written by earl

February 26, 2004

The National Park Service's Innovative Approach to the Underground Railroad

Jennifer Barnett Reed, in the Arkansas Times (Feb. 27, 2004): We all know the elementary-school stories of the Underground Railroad: tales of Harriet Tubman's daring trips south to lead more slaves to freedom, of kindly white Northern abolitionists hiding fugitives in concealed cellar rooms, ushering them down secret passageways toward freedom. But those stories, it turns out, are only the p

February 25, 2004

Daniel Pipes: Defund Middle East Studies

Daniel Pipes, in the NY Sun (Feb. 24, 2004): Here's a prime example, one that involves me personally, of how the radical Left and the Islamists, those new best friends, readily deceive. It has to do with a proposed piece of U.S. legislation passed by the House, the"International Studies in Higher Education Act of 2003," known familiarly as H.R. 3077, and awaiting action by the Senate. H.R. 3077 calls for the creation of an advisory board to review the way in

February 25, 2004

Clarence Page: Why Isn't There a White History Month?

Clarence Page, in the Chicago Tribune (Feb. 25, 2004): Black History Month was never intended to make people uncomfortable--unless maybe they ought to be. Nevertheless, despite the best of intentions, a misunderstanding of what the month is all about can lead sometimes to a whopper of an embarrassment. That's sort of w

February 25, 2004

Simon Schama: Academic History Is Dull!

Jonathan Thompson, in the London Independent (Feb. 22, 2004): Simon Schama, one of Britain's best-known historians , has accused fellow academics of making the subject too dull. Professor Schama is calling for a return to a "golden age" of historians of the calibre of Gibbon, Macaulay and Carlyle. He says modern-day historians - with a few notable exceptions - have lost the ability to inspire the public with tales of the p

February 25, 2004

Rosie the Riveter Finally Gets a Museum

Dru Sefton, for the Newhouse News Service (Feb. 2004): Rosie the Riveter -- the collective nickname evokes images of American women going from kitchens to factories in a home-front effort to win World War II, then relinquishing those jobs to returning soldiers after fighting ceased. But the reality is far more nuanced, shaped by a massive propaganda effort, entrenched gender and race issues, and the need to move into a postwar consumer economy. "General

February 25, 2004

George Washington's Legacy: He Always Knew His Role as President of All the People Came First

Ron Chernow, in the NYT (Feb. 22, 2004): As the Democratic primaries reach a critical stage, partisan spirit is running high, and the presidential campaign is already verging on blood sport. George Washington's birthday today serves as a reminder of how presidents can transcend politics and embody the national spirit. From the time he was recruited as commander in chief in 1775, Washingt

February 25, 2004

The Yom Kippur War--Why It Was So Important

David C. Unger, in the NYT (Feb. 15, 2004): ISRAEL'S brief history falls into two periods. Four heroic wars shaped its first quarter-century. Defeat in any could have brought the end of the Jewish state. Yet Israel emerged victorious from all of them, each time extending, even if only temporarily, the amount of territory under its control. The second period, still under way, has be

February 21, 2004

Benny Morris Roils Middle East Politics (Again) (NYT)

Ethan Bronner, in the NYT (Feb. 20, 2004):Of all the issues separating Israelis and Palestinians, nothing is more contentious than the Palestinian "right of return." Palestinian refugees say they must be permitted to go back to the lands they lost during the 1947-48 war inside what is today Israel. Even pragmatic Arabs who do not expect that Israel will ever permit l

February 21, 2004

How the History of the Soviet Role in WW II Is Being Rewritten

Benjamin Schwarz, in the NYT (Feb. 21, 2004):A plucky Britain refusing to bow to the Luftwaffe's blitz, Patton and Rommel dueling in the North African desert, the D-Day invasion and the Battle of the Bulge — these tend to dominate American's conception of the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany. But as important as the episodes were, military historians have always known that

February 21, 2004

What Did Jesus Really Look Like?

David Gibson, in the NYT (Feb. 21, 2004):Whatever arguments there may be about the verisimilitude of Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ," one thing is certain: this Jesus is a Hollywood hunk who probably bears little resemblance to what the Jesus of history looked like. The title role is played by Jim Caviezel, a dark-haired, blue-eyed star whose broodin

February 20, 2004

A Hateful View of the Jews: Gibson's Passion Play

Geza Vermes, in the London Sunday Telegraph (Feb. 15, 2004):In the storm of publicity which has preceded the release of Mel Gibson's gory film, The Passion of the Christ, its promoters have claimed (though the Vatican has denied) that the Pope gave his blessing to the movie saying: "It is as it was." This is supposed to mean that the film is historically reliable. Gibson was less reticent and suggested that it was "directed

February 20, 2004

Estonia Hasn't Come to Grips with Its Nazi Past

Anna Badkhen, in the SF Chronicle (Feb. 15, 2004):When the United States stripped Michael Gorshkow of his American citizenship and forced him to leave his Florida home 18 months ago, a federal judge said there was no doubt Gorshkow had helped slaughter at least 3,000 Jewish men, women and children during the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe. But now, surrounded by the quaint medieval steeples and tranquil snow-swept farmland of his n

February 20, 2004

Freudianism Is Dead. Long Live Freudianism!

Todd Dufresne, in the LAT (Feb. 18, 2004): What an utter disappointment the 1990s were for the fans of Freud. Time magazine asked aloud, and on its cover no less,"Is Freud Dead?" And the former analytic stronghold, the New York Review of Books, published lengthy feature articles debunking Freud's reputation as a man and as a thinker. By the end of the decade, e