Culture Watch

Sports: Is There Too Much Glitz at the Olympics?

by George Beres

Glitz of the opening ceremonies for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics made them seem much more than a century away from the 1896 renewal of the Games in Greece. Truth be known, Salt Lake City will seem more than a world away from contemporary Greece when the Summer Games open in Athens in 2004. It's not that the Greeks might not want to replicate the fanciful marketing of the Utah Winter Games. They just don't have the resources. Therein lies the secret of how Athens could help the worl

The Color Line: Black History Blues

by Jason Sokol

Born in slavery and nurtured through years of violence and discrimination, the history of blacks in America is a harrowing tale."The story of the Negro in America is the story of America," wrote James Baldwin."It is not a very pretty story." So as every institution from the local Chamber of Commerce to the NBA" celebrates" Black History Month, one is left to wonder -- what is the month's purpose? When education and celebration are in conflict, which should prevail?Black History Month

Books: Ivan Musicant’s Empire By Default: The Spanish-American War and the Dawn of the American Century

by Lewis Gould

Editor's Note: Mr. Gould's review, first published in 1998, singled out several passages in Mr. Musicant's work that bear a striking ressemblance to passages written by other authors. Click here to go to the discussion. Mr. Musicant's book was published by Henry Holt and Company and runs 714 pages long. The following review was first published by H-SHGAPE (June, 1998), a list serve run by the U

Going Down That Lonesome Road, Bound For Glory With Woody Guthrie

by Keith Miller

Born at Okemah, Oklahoma, Woody Guthrie (1912-1967), who during his life of almost constant struggle and hardship, composed more than 1,000 songs, most of which detailed"the plight of the oppressed, dispossessed, poverty- and starvation-ridden, homeless, jobless, nameless, victimized and otherwise disenfranchised American common man," suffered from Huntington's Chorea. After a long confinement in a New Jersey sanatorium, he eventually died at Creedmore Hospital (the Queens, New York). Dead in

Does PBS Do History Right?

by Nancy C. Unger

Recently, PBS premiered a documentary biography about Woodrow Wilson that, for all its many positive qualities, was ultimately a disappointment. Like the vast majority of programs in the"American Experience" series, it was beautifully produced. Vivid photographs and footage were combined with informative and entertaining commentary by leading scholars. Unfortunately, the final product often gave us History Lite -- history reduced to the personal. "Biographies," said Mark Twain, himsel

Books: Phyllis Lee Levin's Edith and Woodrow

by Carl Anthony

In the current crisis, there has been considerable media speculation on Laura Bush's emotional role for her husband. In the midst of impeachment, Hillary Clinton was said to have helped construct the White House defense. But even Nancy Reagan's role in seeking to expel White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan in the midst of the Iran-contra scandal cannot be compared to the personal power of Edith Wilson 82 years ago. The legend of Edith Wilson as our"first woman president" has long been lock

What in the World Has Happened to the Smithsonian?

by Ruth Rosen

Anyone who has ever visited Washington, D.C., knows what a pleasure it is to visit the 16 free museums that make up the nation's Smithsonian Institution. This is where you can inspect the original planes and rockets that circled the skies, learn why African Americans left Southern fields for Northern factories, view artistic masterpieces or gawk at the tiny-waisted dresses worn by former first ladies. But the Smithsonian is far more than artifacts. Ever since its founding by Congress i

Books: Edmund Morris's Theodore Rex

by Reviewed By Lewis L. Gould

Amid the furor over Dutch (1999), his semi-fictionalized biography of Ronald Reagan, Edmund Morris assured his critics that his next book on Theodore Roosevelt's presidency would be grounded in fact and based on the ample documentary record about his subject. Theodore Rex has now appeared with 555 pages of text and another 176 pages of end notes. Yet, this second volume in Morris's projected three-volume biography of the twenty-sixth president is as much an intellectual muddle as

The Color Line: Which Martin Luther King to Honor?

by Ira Chernus

Which Martin Luther King Jr., will we honor this year? The Southerner who broke the back of legalized segregation? Or the American who denounced what he called"the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism" throughout the nation, North and South? Unless we give both sides their full due, we will be honoring only a bloodless, comforting reflection of the whole troubling man. Most Americans remember King the Southerner and heartily thank him for helping to dismantle the Jim Cr

Books: Is Samuel Huntington Right?

by Sean Patrick Farrell

Little has been heard from political scientist Samuel Huntington since 9-11, but his book, The Clash of Civilizations, has helped shaped the debate about the war the United States has waged against Muslim extremists, to the dismay of some historians, including Robert Stacey, the chairman of the history department at the University of Washington. Stacey's specialty is the Middle Ages. He recently gave a talk at the university critical of Huntington's world view.

Muhammad Ali: The Hero Who Once Was an Enemy of the State

by Ruth Rosen

AS A FILM, the newly released"Ali" is riveting, but disappointing. Will Smith fails to capture the charismatic, larger-than-life energy of the extraordinary man who alternately mesmerized and antagonized the American public.

H. Rap Brown, Islamic Hero?

by Daniel Pipes

The man once known as H. Rap Brown, whose antics in the 1960s earned him a reputation as the violent left's least-thoughtful firebrand, is now in the dock for murdering a policeman, with a trial scheduled to begin in January. It promises to be one the year's most spectacular court cases. The defendant is one of the leading figures of the American Muslim community, a group newly in the national spotlight. His trial and the events leading up to it offer some insights into that community. Th

The Color Line: When an Elder Statesman Is Black

by Cynthia King

It wasn't until the national disaster brought on by the events of September 11 that I fully appreciated the rhetorical force an African American elder statesman could wield. Though respected public figures saturated the airwaves with words of reassurance to comfort grief-stricken and fearful citizens like me, it wasn't until I watched an interview NBC's Tom Brokaw conducted with former UN Ambassador Andrew Young that I felt palpably better. Young's insight and eloquence reduced my anxiety a

Books: Campaign 2000, What Academics Think

by Reviewed By Mark C. Miller

This article discusses the following books: Alan M. Dershowitz, Supreme Injustice: How The High Court Hijacked Election 2000Howard Gillman, The Votes That Counted: How The Court Decided The 2000 Presidential ElectionAbner Greene, Understanding The 2000 Election: A Guide To The Legal Battles That Decided The PresidencyRichard A. Posner, Breaking The Deadlock: The 2000 Election, The Constitution, And TheCourtsCass R.

Studs Terkel at 89

by George Beres

If any of my high school classmates, now in their late 60's, felt pangs of advanced age at our 50-year reunion of the Class of '51 this fall, they can take courage from Studs Terkel. I met Studs in Chicago when he was where I now am -- in his 60s. Today, at 89, he retains a perspective more youthful than anyone I know of any age. Nothing better reflects how young the eternal Studs has remained than his current book, Will the Circle Be Unbroken? The sub-title explains these are refl

Books: Chalmers Johnson's Okinawa: Cold War Island,

by Sayuri Shimizu

Editor's Note: The following first appeared in November on H-US-Japan, a list serve run by the University of Michigan under the general name, H-Net. Despite their corrosive effects on Japanese conscience and the US-Japanese alliance, the experiences of the people who inhabit Okinawa have been, until recently, consigned to a dark corner in the historiography of modern Japan and American policies in East Asia. Okinawa's location on

Medical: Remembering the Man Who Always Lost to Perry Mason and then Died of Cancer

by Barron H. Lerner

Peggy Talman knew better than anyone that she should not smoke. In July 1968, her husband, 53-year-old William Talman, taped a landmark antismoking public service announcement that warned of the hazards of cigarettes. Talman, the actor who played the perpetually unsuccessful district attorney, Hamilton Burger, on the fabled ''Perry Mason'' show from 1957 to 1966, was dying of lung cancer. Yet, even after she watched smoking kill her husband, even after she to

The West: Across the Plains and Through the Mountains with Jedediah Smith: A Builder of America

by Keith Miller

After more than a century of study few, if any historians, would object to designating Jedediah Strong Smith (1799-1831) as the greatest of the mountain men, who en masse hunted the buffalo, trapped the beaver, and explored the remoteness of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains from about 1820 until 1840. While the mountain man was, as William H. Goetzmann put the matter, an"expectant capitalist," (p. 107) in Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the Ame

David Horowitz, Ex Radical

Bill Ayers's Future Days, reviewed in HNN a few weeks ago, has provoked myriad heated responses from the leading figures of the Sixties. Among the most enraged is David Horowtiz, whose comments appeared on Conservative Net. Horowitz, an erstwhile leader of the New Left, now takes a more conservative approach to politics and culture, as is evident from his exchange with list member John Morello.

Now Even More People Will Want to Move to the Suburbs

by Knute Berger

National Geographic recently ran satellite images of suburban sprawl in America. From high above, the cameras captured a network of lights that fill the corridors and river valleys with tendrils reaching onto the plains and deserts where once there was only darkness. From the sky, the settlement pattern looks like microbes taking over a petri dish--let's hope it's not anthrax. America is becoming The Suburban Nation. Once there were cities, villages, farms, and wildlands. Today,