Roundup: Talking About History

Catriona Bass: Memory Incompatible: The Archangelsk Affair Continues

[Catriona Bass is a writer specialising in Russia and Tibet.] In September last year, the FSB brought criminal charges against historian Professor Mikhail Suprun and police colonel Aleksandr Dudarev for publishing a ‘Book of Memory’ to victims of Soviet repression. The case, which came to be known as the “Arkhangelsk Affair”, caused considerable outcry at the time. A year on, it has yet to be brought to court. Strangely, this has not prevented the being used as “legal precedent” in

Andrew Romano: The Legacy of John Lennon's Death

[Andrew Romano is Senior Writer for Newsweek.] ’Tis the season for John Lennon. The former Beatle had the misfortune of being murdered on Dec. 8, 1980, mere weeks after his 40th birthday, and so for the past few months we’ve had to endure a wearying deluge of documentaries, reissues, biopics, and exhibitions of the sort that only the twinned, round-number, life-bracketing anniversaries of an assassinated pop legend could possibly occasion. At first, it seemed as if the releases migh

Dovid Katz: Lithuania's Holocaust Conference Problem

[Dovid Katz is chief analyst at the Litvak Studies Institute and a research associate at University College London. He is the author of Lithuanian Jewish Culture and the website DefendingHistory.com.]Today is the fifth and last day of an event in the Lithuanian capital that few would have thought likely: an international conference on Holocaust education whose prime local partners are two state-sponsored bodies that specialize in downgrading the Holocaust into “one of two e

E. Stanly Godbold, Jr.: Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: A Love Story

[E. Stanly Godbold, Jr. is Professor Emeritus of History at Mississippi State University. He served as off-camera consultant and on-camera commentator for the American Experience documentary on the life of Jimmy Carter. He is the author of Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter: The Georgia Years, 1924-1974. This article is a bri

Nancy Snow: Remembering Rosa Parks

[Nancy Snow is an American culture climatologist and persuasion/propaganda expert. Snow is the author or editor of six books, including Persuader-in-Chief: Global Opinion and Public Diplomacy in the Age of Obama.] Two weeks ago today I was in Montgomery, Alabama. Montgomery is called the Capital City of the American South, home to the short-lived Confederate presidency of Jefferson Davis to birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement. Its motto: Change happens here. The sky

Sami Moubayed: Ghosts of Israel's Past and Future

[Sami Moubayed, Ph.D, is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine, Syria’s leading English monthly, since December 2006.] Last summer, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed off on a law extending classification of state archives related to the early years of the Jewish State's foundation. That means all documents related to the war of 1948 and its monumental aftermath will remain under lock and key until 2018, exactly 70 years after what the Arabs refer to as the Palestinian N

Lisa P. Jackson: The EPA Turns 40

[Ms. Jackson is administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.] Forty years ago today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency opened its doors, beginning a history of improvements to our health and environment. We reach this milestone exactly one month after the midterm elections strengthened the influence of groups and individuals who threaten to roll back the EPA's efforts. Last month's elections were not a vote for dirtier air or more pollution in our water.

William Voegeli: Americans Don’t Hate the Rich

[William Voegeli, a contributing editor of the Claremont Review of Books, is the author of Never Enough: America’s Limitless Welfare State (Encounter 2010) and a visiting scholar at Claremont McKenna College’s Salvatori Center.] The liberal-opinion industry spoke with one voice: President Obama’s tax plan was his party’s best hope to avert a midterm disaster. Over Labor Day weekend, Obama called on Congress to continue the Bush tax cuts for every family making less than $250,000 per

Susan J. Gordon: Will and Kate, Can't You Pick Another Date?

[Susan J. Gordon is the author of "Wedding Days: When & How Great Marriages Began."] Hearty felicitations on your engagement, Kate and William. Most of your wedding decisions sound great, but your choice of the date has sent me reeling in shock. Maybe you didn't know that April 29 was the day Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun in 1945. But surely, someone in the royal household might have checked. Sixty-five years later, that early morning ceremony in a Berlin

Dirk Johnson: Why Bill Ayers Was Denied Prof. Emeritus Status

[Dirk Johnson writes for Newsweek.] When Bill Ayers authored Prairie Fire in 1974, the self-proclaimed “revolutionary” and “anti-imperialist” book included a page with the words “To All Who Continue to Fight” and “To All Political Prisoners in the U.S.” Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy, was among those listed. Now Ayers, who recently retired as a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has become eligible for the status of professor emeritus.

Frank Miniter: The First Thanksgiving

[Frank Miniter is the author of The Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide.] In grade school, we’re taught that the story of the First Thanksgiving illustrates the importance of teamwork and charity. That’s true, so far as it goes. But on this Thanksgiving Day, in the wake of a Tea Party’s electoral victory, it’s worth pondering the other moral of the holiday of thanks: capitalism works. The hapless English parishioners who moved to escape religious persecution — first to the N

John Stassel: A Lost Thanksgiving Lesson

[John Stassel hosts "Stassel" on Fox News.] Had today's political class been in power in 1623, tomorrow's holiday would have been called "Starvation Day" instead of Thanksgiving. Of course, most of us wouldn't be alive to celebrate it. Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. But the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn't happen.

Godfrey Hodgson: Thanksgiving and the Tea Party

[Godfrey Hodgson was director of the Reuters' Foundation Programme at Oxford University, and before that the Observer's correspondent in the United States and foreign editor of the Independent.] Today, 25 November, is Thanksgiving, the warmest and most cherished of public holidays in the United States. It is a private, domestic festival. Independence Day is more likely to be associated with bunting, brass-bands and bombast, Thanksgiving is intimate, quiet and non-commercial: an occa

David D. Hall: Peace, Love and Puritanism

[David D. Hall, a professor at Harvard Divinity School, is the author of the forthcoming history “A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England.”] THANKSGIVING 1971, the 350th anniversary of the “first” of the harvest celebrations in Plymouth, Mass. Invited to speak to a local historical society about that long-ago event, I described the ritual significance of food to the colonists and the Native Americans who attended. Afterward, someone asked,

Jonathan Zimmerman: Civil War Relativists are on the Right - and Wrong

[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author, most recently, of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press). He can be reached at jlzimm@aol.com.] Here's a quick quiz culled from our contemporary culture wars: Who said, "There are two sides to every story, two sides to a conflict, and while it would seem simple to record and report hi

Judith W. Page and Elise L. Smith: Writing a Book Together

[Judith W. Page is a professor of English at the University of Florida. Elise L. Smith is a professor of art history at Millsaps College. Their book, "Women, Literature, and the Domesticated Landscape: England's Disciples of Flora, 1780-1870," will be published in February by Cambridge University Press.] Collaborative writing is not as common as it should be in the humanities. Faculty members often consider it too risky for professional advancement, based on what they hear

Peter Carlson: When Elvis Met Nixon

[Peter Carlson is the author, most recently, of K Blows Top, a travelogue on Nikita Khrushchev's 1959 tour of the United States.] The image looks like a computer-generated joke, or maybe a snapshot from some parallel universe where the dead icons of the 20th century hang out together—even Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon. But the picture is genuine, an official White House photograph of a bizarre encounter that occurred in this universe, in the Oval Office on December 21

John Nichols: Chalmers Johnson and the Patriotic Struggle Against Empire

[John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.] With one word, "blowback," Chalmers Johnson explained the folly of empire in the modern age. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, true American patriots—as opposed to the jingoists and profiteers whose madness and greed would steer

Steven M. Gillon: Taking Another Look at LBJ and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy

[Steven M. Gillon is the resident historian of the History Channel and professor of history at the University of Oklahoma. His book, The Kennedy Assassination -- 24 Hours After, is published by Basic Books.] As we approach another anniversary of that fateful day in Dallas, it is useful to reassess the role that Lyndon Johnson played in the critical 24 hours after the assassination. As I argue in my book, The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After, history has not been fair to LBJ.

Clint Hill: On Mrs. Kennedy’s Detail

[Clint Hill, a former assistant director of the Secret Service, served under five presidents.] IT was with great trepidation that I approached 3704 N Street in Washington on Nov. 10, 1960. I had just been given the assignment of providing protection for the wife of the newly elected president of the United States, and I was about to meet her for the first time. I soon realized I had little to worry about. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, just 31 years old at the time, was a