Culture Watch

Racial "Justice" and the Central Park Jogger

by Jim Sleeper

Since the international outcry against false charges that the black"Scottsboro Boys" had raped a white woman in the South in 1931, liberals, at least, have been reluctant to acknowledge the ugly entanglement of race and rape in our national experi

When Middle East Scholars Bury Their Heads in the Sand

by Jonathan Calt Harris

Interested in knowing more about “The Rug Producing Bazaaris of the Holy City of Qum”? Curious about the “Ceramic Production & Consumption in Almohad Seville”? Fascinated by the latest scholarship on “Changes in Religious Celebrations among Moroccan Immigrant Women in the Netherlands”? If so, then the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) conference on November 23-26 in Washington was your cup of tea. But if you want to gain insights into

Why Do So Many Professors Hate America?

by Daniel Pipes

Americans broadly agree on two facts about the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq: its brutality and the danger it poses to themselves, especially the danger of nuclear attack. Disagreement arises primarily over what to do: Take out the regime now? Give Baghdad another chance? Follow the United Nations' lead? Visit an American university, however, and you'll often enter a topsy-turvy world in which professors consider the United States (not Iraq) the problem and oil (not nukes) th

The New Anti-War Movement Is a Lot Like the Old

by Ronald Radosh

The year was 1965. America was fighting in Vietnam. Most Americans accepted the commitment. The anti-war movement was in its infancy. It had begun to pick up steam in 1964, when the draft was instituted, and the emerging New Left was able to use this as the linchpin for waging demonstrations in support of the Vietnamese Communists. On March 17, 1965, the first march on Washington protesting the war took place. It was sponsored by the young Students for a Democratic Society, still a broad left-l

The Odd Parallels Between Kennedy and Lincoln

by Valerie Klein

Comparing Kennedy's death to Lincoln's gives you a host of weird coincidences.

Long Before 1984 There Was We

by Derek Alger

"Tomorrow I'll see the same sight that's repeated from one year to the next, bringing new excitement each time: the mighty chalice of harmony, the people's arms reverently uplifted. Tomorrow is the day for the annual election of the Benefactor. Tomorrow we once more place the keys to the unshakeable fortress of our happiness into the hands of the Benefactor."The words could have come from a public information minister in Iraq, but didn't. No, those are the words of the protagon

Review of Mark Lawrence Kornbluh's Why America Stopped Voting (2000)

by Mark Summers

Somewhere around the dawn of the twentieth century, the political system reformed itself so badly that it may never recover. The law made voting cleaner, more orderly, more honest. The parties lost their grip over the election process and, to some extent, over the hearts of the electorate. At the same time, and not by coincidence, Americans dropped out of active political involvement in droves. More of them could vote than ever before; fewer of them wanted to. This is

So You Want to Make a History Documentary?

by Ronald Blumer

Recently the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation produced an epic multi-part, multi-million-dollar series on the history of Canada. After studying other historical documentaries, the producers made a crucial editorial decision -- there would be no on-camera scholars in the series. Scholars bloviating on television, they concluded, are distracting and boring.I have worked, in one capacity or another, on twenty-five television documentaries having historical subjects. I

Orson Welles's Hoax of the Century: The Halloween Broadcast of 1938

by George Beres

As the air gets nippy, clear autumn evenings are the time to stand outside and gaze at the stars. Never are they sharper in focus than in mid-autumn, though they eventually will fade from view behind the cloud cover of the weeks ahead. Scanning the heavens, I don't scoff at recurring stories of UFOs with aliens spying on earth. I stay uncertain because of a childhood experience: the Halloween night in 1938, when a realistic radio drama convinced a naive audience (radio was brand new the

The Case Against Henry Kissinger: The Movie

by David Greenberg

The director Stanley Kubrick had a gift for counterposing chirpy music with chilling violence to make you laugh and shudder at once. In Dr. Strangelove (1964), Vera Lynn croons"We'll Meet Again" as a mushroom cloud engulfs Planet Earth; in Full Metal Jacket (1987), bedraggled Vietnam grunts march into the dusk singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme. The Trials of Henry Kissinger—a film whose New Left sensibility dates to the mad Kubrickian age of nukes and 'Nam—

Lest We Forget: The Case Against Jane Fonda

by Edward J. Renehan Jr.

Jane Fonda's 1972 visit to North Vietnam - during which she made speeches over Radio Hanoi, posed astride anti-aircraft guns used to shoot down U.S. planes, and cooperated in the propaganda-exploitation of American POWs - shocked and horrified many of her countrymen at the time. Others, however, applauded Fonda's conduct. In the intervening years, Fonda has seen virtually no negative consequence from her anti-American activities. In fact she has made millions. She has been feted and lionized, an

Are Professors too Liberal?

by Juan Cole

David Horowitz has now targeted liberal arts and social science departments at U.S. universities as being "one-party" institutions. He wants this situation changed, and is pressing for something like affirmative action for what he sees as excluded conservatives and Republicans. "You can't get a good education if you only get half the story," he has said.Horowitz was once a c

Democracy v. Liberty?

by Peregrine Worsthorne

Editor's Note: From the newspapers this summer one gathers that millions have arrived at the conclusion that places as different as Iraq, the West Bank and Gaza, Pakistan, and Afghanistan can all be cured by the tonic of democracy. But is democracy enough? What if democracy brings to power a political tyrant or religious extremist? This very real prospect frightens the hell out of people. Half a century ago, at the height of the Cold War, the United States faced this same question whe

Letters to the Editor of the New York Times Book Review

Following are two letters sent to the New York Times in response to Sylvia Nasar's negative review of the new textbook, Inventing America (Norton), written by Pauline Maier, Merritt Roe Smith, Alexander Keyssar and Daniel J. Kevles. The first letter was written by the authors. The second by Louis Ferleger, Professor of History, Boston University. To the Editor, Times Sunday Book Review: We scarcely recognize our book, Inventing America, in Sylvia N

Who's Watching the Watchers?

by Joel Beinin

As the drumbeat for a preemptive war against Iraq grows louder, neo-conservative think tanks and their fellow travelers have deputized themselves to police what may be said about the Middle East. Through defamation and innuendo, they hope to undermine the legitimacy of those who question if a war with Iraq is prudent, necessary, and morally justified. Universities, which thrive on lively debate and diversity of opinion, have been especially targeted for supervision.

The Misuses of Anti-Semitism

by Juan Cole

Harvard President Lawrence Summers has equated favoring university divestment from Israeli stocks with anti-Semitism. Summers has for some time misunderstood the duties of his office to include bullying professors, and in this recent equation he is profoundly wrong. He and others who are taking this tack are also pursuing an extremely dangerous and troubling course with dire implications for civil liberties.In twentieth century American history, Jews were exc

"Under God"--It Wasn't a Product of a Red Scare

by Ronald Radosh

Supporters of taking out the phrase"under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance have come up with a new twist in their arsenal of arguments: It was part and parcel of the McCarthyite witch-hunt of the 1950s, when America faced a phony Red menace and the real dangers came from right-wing proponents of a new conformity. Historian David Greenberg, for example, writes in the online magazine Slate of a time when"Billy Graham rose to fame as a Red-baiter," not as an evangelical Christian. The word

The Speech that Made Nixon's Dog Famous

by Edward Olshaker

The night of September 23, 1952-50 years ago this week-39-year-old California Senator Richard Nixon appeared on nationwide television to answer charges concerning an "expense fund" he had been given by wealthy California businessmen. Emotionally distraught, under fire from enemies, betrayed by party colleagues only minutes earlier, the vice-presidential candidate made a half-hour appeal that not only saved his career from early ruin, but boosted the Republican party in mid-

Campus Watch: Keeping an Eye on Professors Who Teach About the Middle East

by Middle East Forum

Last week the Middle East Forum, which is directed by HNN contributor Daniel Pipes, established a new website known as Campus Watch. The website lists professors suspected of an anti-Israel bias and asks students to send in names and information. The site currently lists"dossiers" on eight professors, including Juan Cole, who is also a frequent HNN contributor. Mr. Cole reports to HNN that since the website

The Old Sixties Left Wages Another Campaign

by Ronald Radosh

Most Americans readily understand, after experiencing the horror of the 9/11 attack on our nation last year, that evil exists, and that those seeking to destroy what we hold dear are indeed the epitome of evildoers. But not the radical academics and Hollywood celebrities, who are trying their best to resurrect from its coffin the old '60s anti-Vietnam War coalition. Thus, coming to the ad pages of the New York Times will be what they call"A Statement of Conscience," calling o