Roundup: Talking About History

Sam Tanenhaus: Daniel Bell, Master Builder

[Sam Tanenhaus is the editor of the Book Review.] With the death last month of Daniel Bell, America lost its last great 20th-century big thinker, though this is not necessarily the impression many now have of him. One reason is that Bell was most prolific during a period, 1950-80, bounded by the cold war, that has receded into the half-forgotten past. Another is that for most of his career, Bell was seen less as a singular figure than as one of a club of intellectuals whose pedigree

Jonathan Chait: Reagan Revisionism And Reagan Mythology

[Jonathan Chait is a senior editor at The New Republic.] Politico has an interesting feature about the fear among conservatives that their campaign to canonize Ronald Reagan has turned their hero into a post-ideological hero, rather than an embodiment of conservative values. A specimen of this fear is Steven Hayward's National Review essay, Reagan Reclaimed," castigating liberals for an ideological kidnapping of Ronaldus Magnus. Before I wade into this, I should su

John Fund: The Roots of Ronald Reagan's Ambition

[Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.] Ronald Reagan's status as a mythic figure was demonstrated on Sunday as 1,500 guests gathered at the Reagan Presidential Library to celebrate what would have been his 100th birthday. Liberals have come to accept his strengths and even acknowledge some of his accomplishments, while conservatives have raised even higher his pedestal. Yet unanswered questions about the Gipper linger. His son, Ron Reagan, notes that even though his fat

Kimberley Strassel: Rumsfeld's 'Slice of History' (interview)

[Ms. Strassel writes the Journal's Potomac Watch column.] 'I'd read other folks' books about things I'd been involved in . . . and I'd think, 'My goodness, that's not my perspective,'" chuckles former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in an interview last Friday. "I remember talking to [former Secretary of State] George Shultz and he said, 'Don, that's the way it is. Everyone has their slice of history and you need to write yours one day so that it is part of the record

David A. Bell: Why We Can't Rule Out an Egyptian Reign of Terror

[David A. Bell is the Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor in the Era of North Atlantic Revolutions at Princeton University.] There are, of course, many different ways of categorizing historical revolutions. But for the purposes of understanding what is happening in Egypt -- and the challenges it may pose for the United States -- one simple, rough distinction may be especially useful. This is the distinction between revolutions that look more like 1688 and revolutions that look more li

Tevi Troy: The Gipper’s Gift: A Pro-Israel GOP

[Tevi Troy, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, served as a senior White House aide under President George W. Bush. He is the author of “Intellectuals and The American Presidency: Philosophers, Jesters, or Technicians?” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).] As America marks the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth, we will be remembering one of our country’s greatest leaders with speeches, tributes and television specials. Friends of Israel will have a special reason to cele

Arnold Reisman: On an Armenian Manifesto Circa 1923, III

[Arnold Reisman is an engineer and a retired professor of operations research at Case Western Reserve University. Born in Lodz in 1934, he came to the United States after World War II and is the author of numerous books about Holocaust refugees in Turkey, including Turkey's Modernization: Refugees from Nazism and Ataturk's Vision (New Academia, 2006).]Hovannes Katchaznouni, 1923As the title implies this is the third article in a series published by HNN bearing

Rudolph P. Byrd and Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Jean Toomer's Conflicted Racial Identity

[Rudolph P. Byrd is a professor of African-American studies and founding director of the James Weldon Johnson Institute at Emory University. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is a professor of African and African American studies and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University. This essay is adapted from their introduction to a new edition of Jean Toomer's Cane, published in January by W.W. Norton.] On August 4, 1922, about a year before he published his first book, Cane, Jea

Peter Dreier: Reagan's Real Legacy

[Peter Dreier is professor of politics and director of the Urban & Environmental Policy program at Occidental College. He is co-author of The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City (University of California Press, 2005) and Place Matters: Metropolitics for the 21st Century (2nd edition, University Press of Kansas, 2005) and co-editor of Up Against the Sprawl.] As the nation embarks on a celebration this Sunday of the hundredth anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s

Christopher Sisserian: Understanding the Importance of a Shared Turkish-Armenian History

[Christopher Sisserian is a freelance journalist living in London, and currently a graduate student of International Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).] The separation of Armenians and Turks in 1915 is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Both communities often choose to ignore their shared history, to the detriment of efforts at reestablishing ties, the most recent of which appear to have failed. Although the issue has received much attention following the

Jeffrey Bell: The Future of Reaganism

[Jeffrey Bell, policy director of the American Principles Project and author of a forthcoming book on social conservatism, was an issue adviser to the Reagan campaigns of 1976 and 1980.] The debate about Ronald Reagan has never shown any sign of ending, but it is less and less about whether his presidency was consequential. As has happened with a few other high-impact presidencies​—​see historian Merrill Peterson’s classic The Jeffersonian Image in the American M

Fred Barnes: The Midwestern Roots of Ronald Reagan

[Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.] ...“There wouldn’t have been a President Reagan without his upbringing in the Midwest,” says Craig Shirley, who’s written books about Reagan’s presidential campaigns in 1976 and 1980. Somewhere around 1,000 books about Reagan have been published, and several of his biographers, especially Lou Cannon and Anne Edwards, have emphasized the Midwestern influence. The academic community, however, has been slow to catch on.

Matthew Dallek: The Divisive Underbelly of Reagan's Sunny Optimism

[Matthew Dallek, a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), teaches history and politics at the University of California Washington Center] ...[T]he absence of doubt in so much of Reagan's repertoire -- the Manichaean streak he routinely displayed -- applied to other, darker aspects of his rhetorical legacy. Perhaps Reagan "delivered America from fear and loathing," as historian John Patrick Diggins once said. But it's also fair to point out that he sometime

Robert Busby: The Scandal that Almost Destroyed Ronald Reagan

[Busby is the author of Reagan and the Iran-Contra Affair: The Politics of Presidential Recovery.] On Nov. 13, 1986, President Reagan declared in a national address, "We did not -- repeat -- did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages -- nor will we." His assertion ran counter to covert operations that had been ongoing for several years. Reagan was faced with an uncomfortable question, transposed from the Watergate scandal, which threatened to strike at his credibi

Steve Kornacki: The "Southern Strategy," Fulfilled

[Steve Kornacki is Salon's news editor] Democrats thought they had solved their Southern problem in 1976, when a peanut farmer-turned-Georgia governor named Jimmy Carter swept through the old Confederacy, winning every state except Virginia en route to a narrow electoral college victory over President Gerald Ford. For the first time in 12 years, the Democrats had won a national election -- and Dixie was the reason why. This resurgence, though, was little more than a mir

David M. Abshire: How America's 40th President Passed a Key Test of Character

[David M. Abshire, a former US Ambassador to NATO and Special Counselor to President Ronald Reagan during the Iran-Contra affair, is president of The Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.] In the midst of the many events marking the 100th birthday celebration of President Ronald Reagan on February 6, 2011, a bust of the 40th president will be unveiled at the Ronald Reagan Airport. However good the likeness, it will only be able to hint at what made Reagan the kind of

Masha Lipman: Moving Lenin's body won't cut Russia's ties to its Soviet past

[Masha Lipman, editor of the Carnegie Moscow Center's Pro et Contra journal, writes a monthly column for The Post.] It was audacious to suggest two decades ago that Vladimir Lenin's body be moved from its mausoleum in Red Square. But by the time Vladimir Medinsky, a member of the chief pro-Kremlin force in the lower house of parliament, made the same suggestion last month, the proposal had become politically meaningless. Regardless of whether Lenin's body is moved, Russia remains ti

Jack White: Why I Won't Celebrate Ronald Reagan's 100th Birthday

[Jack White is a frequent contributor to The Root.] Like most African Americans old enough to shudder with revulsion when they remember Ronald Reagan's presidency, I won't be joining the hagiographical celebration of the late conservative saint's 100th birthday that is scheduled to take place this weekend. There will simply be too many lies. The celebrations won't be talking about it, but neither the passage of time nor President Barack Obama's oft-stated admiration for

Julian Zelizer: Reagan the Politician

[Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton University, is the author of “Jimmy Carter” and the editor of “The Presidency of George W. Bush.”] Politics is a dirty word in Washington. Movement activists, on the left and the right, hate when their party negotiates with the opposition and compromises on key issues. Over the past year, tea party Republicans leveled this charge against the GOP. They complained that Republicans had become too comfortable with the wheeli

Edmund Morris: Dutch Returns to His Hometown

[Edmund Morris is the author of “Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan” and, most recently, “Colonel Roosevelt.”] BACK in 1992, when Ronald Reagan first began to be strange (a bewilderment in his amethyst gaze, a hesitancy in speech and step), he impulsively said that he wanted to visit his birthplace. This desire was a surprise to those around the former president. He had never shown any interest in Tampico, Ill.... In 1992, I found myself returning there with him, pointing