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: American Prospect
Dec 18, 2007
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of several distinguished works on the great progressive presidents, including Team of Rivals, on Lincoln and his Cabinet; No Ordinary Time, on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and World War II; Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream; and The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys. Prospect co-editor Robert Kuttner talked with Goodwin about presidential leadership. They spoke at her home in Concord, Massachusetts, near the spot where the Amer
Source: Michael Kazin in the Chronicle of Higher Ed
Dec 18, 2007
A few weeks from now, a good university press will publish the first biography of Alfred Kazin. This should make me, his only son, happier than it does. Not that I have any complaint with the book itself. The author — Richard M. Cook, an English professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis — appraises my father's work with sympathy and insight. Inevitably, he describes the tumultuous relationships my father had with his four wives, several lovers, a few of his students, and many of his f
Source: Press Release -- U. of Washington, Tacoma
Dec 18, 2007
On a miserable, wet February day in Memphis, Tennessee, 1968, two sanitation workers lost their lives—crushed to death in the back of their truck—due to outdated equipment and the indifference of their white supervisors. Their deaths would touch off one of the most significant labor strikes in the history of the nation, one that before its end would rock the plantation mentality of Memphis's government to its core and, on April 4, 1968, see the tragic death of Martin Luther King, Jr. Going Down
Source: NYT
Dec 17, 2007
Many people know that Conrad M. Black, the media baron who was sentenced last week to six and a half years in prison, is also a serious author, with weighty biographies of Richard M. Nixon and Franklin D. Roosevelt under his belt.
But since his conviction in July on charges of fraud and obstruction of justice, Mr. Black has had to confine his movements to Chicago, the site of his trial, and Palm Beach, where he has a home. Given that his Nixon book, subtitled “A Man in Full,” was pu
Source: Martin E. Marty in Sightings, the newsletter of the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Dec 17, 2007
The images and prophecies connected with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the biblical book of Revelation seem horrifying enough. But in a "you-ain't-seen-nothing-yet" spirit, Philip Jenkins in December 10th's New Republic warns of disastrous implications for religious conflict after studying the results of climate-modeling by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
More than anyone else we read, Jenkins regularly writes about global Christianity for broad
Source: Mr. Phelps in an article at the website of Inside Higher Ed
Dec 17, 2007
[Christopher Phelps teaches American history at the Ohio State University at Mansfield. He changed the names of each of the three students here to protect their privacy, but all are actual students who were enrolled in his fall 2007 classes.]
... At the beginning of every term, I hand out blank cards to students. I ask students to share something unique about themselves, so I can attach a personality to the name. Usually students tell me about their favorite video games or sports. N
Source: NYT
Dec 17, 2007
Diane Wood Middlebrook, a biographer, poet and critic known for her best-selling, controversial life of the poet Anne Sexton, died on Saturday in San Francisco. She was 68.
The cause was cancer, her family said.
At her death, Ms. Middlebrook was emeritus professor of English at Stanford University, where she had taught since the 1960s. Her other biographies were a joint life of Sylvia Plath and her husband, Ted Hughes, and the story of the cross-dressing jazz musician B
Source: http://www.news-press.com
Dec 17, 2007
[HNN Editor: This story is about the son of Al Camarillo, a professor of history at Stanford.]
MIAMI — There were three people wearing Greg Camarillo's No. 83 jersey in Dolphin Stadium on Sunday.
And at the end of the game, all three were getting mobbed.
There was the Miami wide receiver, who caught a 64-yard, game-winning touchdown pass to give the Dolphins their first win of the season and prevent the team from going 0-16. As he celebrated with fans at t
Source: Science Daily
Dec 16, 2007
By analyzing some lesser known photographs, taken by world famous documentary photographers, art historian Cecelia Strandroth relates a new history of the Depression Era in the United States. She will publicly defend her dissertation at Uppsala University on December 14.
Can documentary photographs be regarded as credible depictions of events in the world or are they rather staged representations of a special perspective? Do documentary photos take part in the struggle against injus
Source: NYT
Dec 16, 2007
Allan Bérubé, a MacArthur Award-winning independent scholar whose history of gay men and lesbians in the military in World War II is widely considered the definitive book on the subject, died on Tuesday in Liberty, N.Y. He was 61. A former resident of Manhattan, Mr. Bérubé had lived in Liberty in recent years.
The cause was complications of stomach ulcers, a friend, Wayne Hoffman, said.
“Coming Out Under Fire” (Free Press), published in 1990, explores the uneasy but at
Source: H-Diplo
Dec 15, 2007
John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, September 2007. Hardcover, $25.00. ISBN: 978-0-374-17772-0.
Published by H-Diplo on 15 December 2007
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Source: Dana Parsons in the LAT
Dec 15, 2007
Some will see the dispute between the Farnan family of Mission Viejo and high school history teacher James Corbett in stark terms. The forces of light against the forces of darkness.
The problem is, not everyone agrees which side is which....
What makes the Farnan lawsuit intriguing, however, is that the guts of it come from Chad's tape-recording of one of Corbett's Advanced Placement European history classes at Capo Valley High School in October.
I can't v
Source: National Coalition for History blog
Dec 14, 2007
On December 7, 2007, the National Coalition for History and thirty other organizations sent a letter to four U.S. Senators currently running for president urging them to cosponsor the S. 886, “The Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007.” The joint letter was sent to Senators Joseph Biden (D-DE), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ). Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is currently the only presidential candidate who has endorsed S. 886.
Presidential ca
Source: Detroit Free Press
Dec 14, 2007
The author of one of Princeton University Press'"100 most influential
books of the past 100 years" will be a scholar in residence at Wayne
State's law school in 2008.
Detroit native Thomas J. Sugrue's book"The Origins of the Urban
Crisis: Race and Inequality in Post-War Detroit" made the Princeton
list in 2005. His latest book is called"Sweet Land of Liberty: The
Unfinished Struggle for Racial Equality in the North."
Most recently, Sugrue, who will be the Izumi Scholar in Residence,
Source: Robert KC Johnson at HNN blog, Cliopatria
Dec 13, 2007
Professors in the University of Iowa's History Department have had some unusual explanations about the department's partisan imbalance. Several weeks ago, for instance, department chairman Colin Gordon cited the registration figures for Johnson County (home of the University) to account for the fact that his department has no registered Republicans. The University, I assume, has a policy of actively recruiting its membership from beyond county
Source: AP
Dec 13, 2007
A far-right Greek historian was sentenced to 14 months in prison Thursday for inciting racial hatred with a book that denies the Holocaust took place, court officials said.
Historian Costas Plevris appealed his sentence and was not taken into custody.
A three-member panel of judges voted 2-1 to find Plevris guilty of inciting violence and racial hatred. The court cleared three other defendants of similar charges: the publisher, the editor and a journalist at a small ri
Source: Gay City News
Dec 13, 2007
Allan Bérubé, a pioneering gay historian who was also a renaissance man of sorts - as an anti-war organizer during the Viet Nam War, the proprietor of a bed & breakfast in the Catskills, the owner of an antiques and collectibles business and more recently an office design firm, and the recipient of a "genius grant" from the John D. and Catherine T. McArthur Foundation - died on December 11.
Raised in a trailer park in Bayonne, about which he wrote in the anthology &quo
Source: Harvard Crimosn
Dec 13, 2007
What do an astrophysicist, oceanic chemist, archaeologist, literary historian, and a paleobotanist have in common?
According to Professor of Medieval History Michael McCormick, they are all key players in the interdisciplinary cooperation needed to better our understanding of the history of humanity.
“We know more today than we did last Friday about the past. And last Friday we knew more about the past than any other human civilization that’s ever existed on the face
Source: LAT
Dec 13, 2007
A San Juan Capistrano high school student and his parents filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday alleging that his history teacher violated his constitutional rights by making "highly inappropriate" and offensive statements in class regarding Christianity.
James Corbett, who teaches Advanced Placement European history at Capistrano Valley High School, consistently "demonstrates a sense of hostility toward religion," causing Christian students to "feel ostracized
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Dec 13, 2007
Gordon Brown says we have so much to be proud of in this country and our history and moral values should be central to the school curriculum. The Prime Minister puts his weight behind our campaign for a national museum of history.
