Roundup: Talking About History

Asahi Shimbun: The Great Tokyo Air Raid and the Bombing of Civilians in World War II

The firebombing of Tokyo on the night of March 9-10, 1945 touched off the wave of firebombing that destroyed 64 Japanese cities and culminated in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been deeply engraved on the consciousness of humanity and commemorated in monuments, museums, films, novels and textbooks, the firebombing and napalming of civilians of many other Japanese and Asian cities has largely disappeared from consciousness, except for the v

David McKittrick: What Really Happened on Bloody Sunday?

[David McKittrick is an award-winning Ireland correspondent for the Independent.] Given it will stretch to several million words, Lord Saville's report on Bloody Sunday is bound to contain surprises when it is finally published. The exhaustive document will be handed to Shaun Woodward, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in a week's time and the findings are likely to be made public a few days later. If it concludes that the 14 people who were killed in London

Mikhail Gorbachev: Perestroika Lost

[Mikhail Gorbachev was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until its collapse in 1991. This article was translated by Pavel Palazhchenko from the Russian.] PERESTROIKA, the series of political and economic reforms I undertook in the Soviet Union in 1985, has been the subject of heated debate ever since. Today the controversy has taken on a new urgency — not just because of the 25th anniversary, but also because Russia is again facing the challenge of change. In moments like th

Sean Wilentz: The Vindication of Ulysses S. Grant

[Sean Wilentz, a professor of history at Princeton, is the author, most recently, of “The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008.”] Ronald Reagan deserves posterity’s honor, and so it makes sense that the capital’s airport and a major building there are named for him. But the proposal to substitute his image for that of Ulysses S. Grant on the $50 bill is a travesty that would dishonor the nation’s bedrock principles of union, freedom and equality — and damage its historical identity.

Max Holland: The Historian as Hustler

[Max Holland worked on the Lyndon Johnson presidential tape recordings at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs from 1999 to 2003. The full version of this article appears at Washington Decoded.]In November 2005, The Washington Spectator published an article by this author about the publishing practices of the 9/11 Commission. “

Robert Fisk: Living Proof of the Armenian Genocide

[Robert Fisk is a columnist at the Independent.] It's only a small grave, a rectangle of cheap concrete marking it out, blessed by a flourish of wild yellow lilies. Inside are the powdered bones and skulls and bits of femur of up to 300 children, Armenian orphans of the great 1915 genocide who died of cholera and starvation as the Turkish authorities tried to "Turkify" them in a converted Catholic college high above Beirut. But for once, it is the almost unknown story of t

Diego Gambetta: The Legacy of the Red Army Faction

[Diego Gambetta is a professor of sociology at Oxford University and the author, most recently, of Codes of the Underworld.] On April 20, 1998, Reuters in Cologne received a letter mailed from Chemnitz, near the border between Germany and the Czech Republic. It read, in part: "Nearly 28 years ago, on May 14, 1970, the RAF was born in a liberation action. Today we end this project. The urban guerrilla battle of the RAF is now history." A bizarre coincidence: April 20, 1998,

Paul Kengor: Mikhail Gorbachev vs. the Evil Empire

[Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College.] The media jumps at anniversaries of historical figures and events. For those of us who write about history, we, too, seize these opportunities to teach history, especially history Americans should know. Here's one such case: Can you believe it has been 25 years since Mikhail Gorbachev came to power? Gorbachev seized the reins of the Sov

Michael Ruse: Philosophers Rip Darwin, But They're Ignorant of Science

[Michael Ruse directs the program in the history and philosophy of science at Florida State University. His latest book, Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science, was just published by Cambridge University Press. He contributes to The Chronicle Review's blog, Brainstorm.] Last year was the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or t

Jonathan Tobin: Smearing Theodore Roosevelt

[Jonathan Tobin is executive editor of Commentary.] The cultural vilification of the politicians and officials who launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq has not satisfied those intellectuals and activists who view American history as a continuum of racism, imperialism, and aggression. The authors of two new books have now extended the hunt for the spiritual antecedents of the George W. Bush administration. Their prey is an unlikely villain: Theodore Roosevelt.

David Elstein: Daniel Goldhagen Recycles Fantasy on Kenya's Mau Mau Uprising

[David Elstein is currently Chairman of openDemocracy. He is also Chairman of DCD Media, Screen Digest, Luther Pendragon, and the Broadcasting Policy Group.]A scholar who makes large claims must expect to be held to an exacting test of accuracy. If it is failed, the integrity of the work is called into question. In this respect, Daniel Goldhagen’s treatment of events in colonial Kenya in the 1950s - which takes up thirty pages of his new book

Joan Waugh: Ulysses S. Grant Earned His $50 Bill

[Joan Waugh is a professor of history at UCLA and the author of "U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth."] Shame on the 14 Republican congressmen who last week proposed substituting Ronald Reagan for Ulysses S. Grant on the $50 bill. Their action suggests they need a history lesson about the Northern general who won the Civil War and went on to lead the country. Having enjoyed brief acclaim during the Mexican-American War, the onetime farmer was toiling in o

Melanie Bayley: Alice in Wonderland is a Parody of Nineteenth Century Math

[Melanie Bayley is a doctoral candidate in English literature at Oxford.] SINCE “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” was published, in 1865, scholars have noted how its characters are based on real people in the life of its author, Charles Dodgson, who wrote under the name Lewis Carroll. Alice is Alice Pleasance Liddell, the daughter of an Oxford dean; the Lory and Eaglet are Alice’s sisters Lorina and Edith; Dodgson himself, a stutterer, is the Dodo (“Do-Do-Dodgson”)....

Steven F. Hayward: Would Reagan Vote for Sarah Palin?

[Steven F. Hayward is the F.K. Weyerhaeuser fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counter-Revolution, 1980-1989." His most recent Outlook essay was "Is Conservatism Brain-Dead?" on Oct. 4. He will be online on to chat with readers on Monday, March 8, at 11 a.m. Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.] Sarah Palin invokes him. Mitt Romney glorifies him. The "tea party&quo

Gabriel Partos: Karadzic reawakens ghosts of the past

[Gabriel Partos is a Balkans analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit.] In delivering the opening statement of his defence Radovan Karadzic set out to portray the Bosnian war as one of self-defence by the Bosnian Serbs against the Muslims who, according to him, were bent on dominating the country. The wartime Bosnian Serb leader, who is facing 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugosla

Ramzy Baroud: Challenging History: Why the Oppressed Must Tell Their Own Story

[Ramzy Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story" (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.] When American historian Howard Zinn passed away recently, he left behind a legacy that redefined our relationship to history altogether. Professor Zinn dared to challenge the way history was told and written. In fact he went as far as to

Barnabe F. Geisweiller: Vestiges of War: How We Choose to Remember

[Barnabe F. Geisweiller, a Canadian, is a graduate student at Columbia University's School of Journalism. More of his work can be found at www.barnabeg.com.] As a child my grandmother took me to the coast of Normandy so I could learn about the Second World War and see for myself the landscape and bunkers fought over at the cost of so many lives. Across the world, war is memorialized. Victories are celebrated and defeats bitterly remembered, and

Gideon Rachman: How Reagan ruined conservatism

[Gideon Rachman is the FT’s chief foreign affairs columnist.] Battling my way through Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue, last weekend, I began to wonder how American conservatism had come to this. Ms Palin’s book is smug, lightweight, nationalistic, entirely free of original ideas. How has this woman become the darling of the American right? How has she become so popular that some bookmakers make her the favourite to win the Republican party nomination in 2012? And then

Francis Lam: The Rice Fritter that Freed the Slaves

[Francis Lam is a frequent contributor to the Food section of Salon.com] ..."Calas came to New Orleans with the slaves from Ghana, where they grow rice," [Poppy Tooker] told me. "Today, if you go there, you can still see people frying them, and they call them cala." "Starting in the 1700s, calas vendors would stand outside St. Louis cathedral, waiting for church to let out. They had a call," Poppy said. She opened her mouth wide, as if sing

Jimmy Carter: Walter Russell Mead Does My Presidency a Disservice

[Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United States.] Although I have refrained from responding to gratuitous and incorrect analyses of my foreign policy, I feel compelled to comment on Walter Russell Mead's cover story ("The Carter Syndrome," January/February 2010), which the editors apparently accepted without checking the author's facts or giving me a chance to comment. I won't criticize or correct his cute and erroneous oversimplistic distortions of presidential