This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: AP of Pakistan
Nov 14, 2008
William Dalrymple, a historian on South Asia, has drawn US President-elect Barack Obama’s attention to obligation he owes to Pakistan’s democracy and its people in breaking with the Bush administration’s policy of conducting unilateral strikes against militant targets on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border.
“It is difficult to see how Obama plans to reach out to the people of Pakistan,” as he has said, “if he ignores their democratically elected leaders and if he continues (the pract
Source: http://news.slashdot.org
Nov 14, 2008
George Washington University has today released a three-volume history of NSA activities during the Cold War (major highlights). Written by agency historian Thomas R. Johnson, the 1,000-page report, 'Cryptology During the Cold War, 1945-1989,' details some of the agency's successes and failures, its conflict with other intelligence agencies, and the questionable legal ground on which early American cryptologists worked. The report remained classified for years, until Johnson mentioned it to Matt
Source: Politico.com
Nov 13, 2008
... A possible clue to Obama’s willingness to consider Clinton for chief diplomat can be found in a January interview he gave to Katie Couric, anchor and managing editor of the “CBS Evening News.” As part of her “Primary Questions” series, she asked him what books besides the Bible he would considers essential if he were elected president.
“Doris Kearns Goodwin's book ‘Team of Rivals,’” Obama replied. “It was a biography of Lincoln. And she talks about Lincoln's capacity to bring o
Source: http://www.businessandmedia.org
Nov 12, 2008
Still more than two months from his inauguration, President-elect Barack Obama has started promoting his policies and naming some of his advisers. And according to one historian, he could be developing a plan to permanently block drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Douglas Brinkley, a noted presidential historian and professor at Rice University in Houston, told viewers of CNN’s Nov. 11 “Lou Dobbs Tonight” how Obama could change ANWR’s designation from a National
Source: Network of Concerned Historians
Nov 12, 2008
Dear colleagues,
Scholars at Risk (SAR), based at New York University, works to promote academic freedom and to defend the human rights of scholars worldwide, in part by arranging temporary placements for scholars who suffer grave threats to their work or their person. SAR is sending us a summary profile of a Uzbek historian [name confidential] (1970-) working at the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan and at the Tashkent State Institute of Oriental Studies. He was harassed during int
Source: http://www.kansas.com
Nov 11, 2008
If he wants to succeed as president, Barack Obama would do well to follow the lead of Abraham Lincoln and surround himself with people with opposing viewpoints, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian said Tuesday night in Wichita.
Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln," Goodwin was the keynote speaker at the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce's annual meeting at Century II.
Goodwin said Obama should see
Source: China Beat
Nov 11, 2008
Elizabeth Perry of Harvard University is the outgoing president of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) and the author of many books. She has also edited and co-edited nine books (one with China Beat’s Jeff Wasserstrom) which address issues of workers’ rights, popular protest, revolution, and reform. Last April, she delivered the presidential address at the Annual Meeting of the AAS in Atlanta, Georgia. In this address, which will appear in print in the November issue of the Journal of Asian
Source: Press Release
Nov 11, 2008
WHO: Speakers: Jonathan Alter, Newsweek columnist and author of “The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope”; Ambassador Dennis Ross, a peace negotiator under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton; Harris Wofford, former senator from Pennsylvania and Civil Rights leader; Robert Kuttner, co-founder of The American Prospect magazine and author of “Obama’s Challenge: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency”; Marjora Carter, fou
Source: Press Release--Center for History & New Media
Nov 11, 2008
The Center for History and New Media, in partnership with the Minnesota Historical Society, is pleased to announce a major new release of its Omeka web publishing platform, version 0.10b. From the Swahili word meaning “to display” or “to lay out for discussion,” Omeka is a next generation web publishing platform for collections-based research of all kinds, one that bridges the scholarly, library, and museum worlds through a set of commonly recognized standards. In doing so Omeka puts serious web
Source: NJ.com
Nov 10, 2008
Early in his presidency, Barack Obama will have to decide whether to focus solely on the nation's economic crisis or to pursue the broad agenda he laid out during the campaign, according to presidential historian Michael Beschloss.
Recently named NBC News' presidential historian, Beschloss made these and other observations Friday during his keynote address at the 37th annual Saint Peter's College Board of Regents Business Symposium held at the Hyatt Regency in Jersey City.
Source: http://www.tacomadailyindex.com
Nov 10, 2008
With the victory of President-elect Barack Obama, the United States is finally coming to terms with its own tumultuous history, according to University of Washington Tacoma Professor Michael Honey.
A nationally renowned expert on labor history, civil rights and Martin Luther King Jr., Honey believes the country is finally facing the reality that people of color are a vibrant, important and equitable part of society. It's a giant leap forward for America, he said.
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Source: NYT
Nov 10, 2008
Make room on the bookshelf — perhaps somewhere between “Dow 36,000” by Glassman and Hassett or “The End of History and the Last Man” by Fukuyama — for the unfortunately named “A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win” by Shelby Steele.
Many an author has come to incorrect conclusions, but only a few have had the courage to make a prediction in a title that could be directly contradicted.
Mr. Steele, a prolific author on racial issues in America a
Source: Independent (UK)
Nov 9, 2008
One of the most ambitious historical television series ever created, A History of Scotland – two years in the making and costing more than £2m – airs tonight. But while glasses of malt whisky are clinking as the makers congratulate each other, elsewhere tempers are fraying faster than the hem of well-worn kilt.
The BBC spectacular has driven a wedge right into the middle of civic Scotland and its academic elite. On one side are those who claim the series finally offers a genuine – a
Source: Chicago Tribune
Nov 9, 2008
If Barack Obama is looking for a model as president-elect, Abraham Lincoln seems perfect. In a time of national crisis, with Southern states seceding from the Union, that earlier son of Illinois had to prepare himself for taking office—but also avoid making a misstep. It was his first test as a national leader.
So, what lessons can Obama learn from what Lincoln did—and didn't do—in the time between his election and inauguration?
To find out, the Tribune asked two Lincol
Source: NYT
Nov 8, 2008
After the great crash of 1929, the Wells-Grand Hotel in Chicago began losing guests. The ones who remained had more time for idle pastimes. “The decks of cards were wearing out more quickly” and “the black and red squares of the checkerboard were becoming indistinguishable.”
Those are the recollections of Studs Terkel, from his classic oral history of the Great Depression, “Hard Times.” I found myself re-reading the book this week because of the confluence of two unhappy events: the
Source: Ralph Luker at HNN blog, Cliopatria
Nov 7, 2008
After multiple arrests for shoplifting, Rick Beard, executive director of Springfield, Illinois' Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, a member of the OAH's Distinguished Lectureship Program and kleptomaniac, has been placed on paid leave from his position at the Lincoln Library. He seems fond of DVDs from Target and men's
Source: Independent (UK)
Nov 7, 2008
This year, Gordon Brown has made something of a habit of surprise guest-star roles at literary events. He materialised for an interview with Sebastian Faulks at the London Book Fair, and with Ian Rankin at the Edinburgh book festival. At Earls Court in April, I heard him talk with unfeigned passion and fluency about the research into the contrasting faces of Second World War heroism that lies behind his book. It arrives less than 18 months after his "eight portraits" of courage in civi
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
Nov 7, 2008
When I catch John Patrick Diggins on the telephone to talk about the election and presidential leadership, he has just returned from an event at the Century Foundation. At the lunch table, he comments gruffly, "All people spoke about was winning the election, no one seemed to be concerned with the problems of the future." A surreal gap exists, he says, between the often frivolous horse-race chatter about tactics and strategy that dominates the national conversation and the grim reality
Source: NPR
Nov 5, 2008
The election swept away the last racial barrier in American politics "with ease," according to a New York Times article Wednesday.
"The Times quote is nonsense," says Taylor Branch, a civil rights historian and biographer of Martin Luther King Jr.
"It's a great milestone," he tells Madeleine Brand, but it's not an "explicit achievement or accomplishment in race relations in the lives of everyday Americans … I hope we don't get into a t
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Nov 5, 2008
The country just elected its first African-American president, a historic event capping a nearly two-year campaign of shattered fund-raising records, massive voter turnout and unprecedented participation in politics. Academics may be savoring the moment, but political scientists, at least, are more interested in how very ordinary it was.
Political science, as a discipline, tends to take the long view, developing models over time that explain the workings of the government and the el
