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: Inside Higher Ed
Sep 11, 2007
The University of Michigan Press last month halted distribution of Overcoming Zionism, which argues that the creation of Israel was a mistake and urges adoption of the “one state” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which Israelis and Palestinians would form a new country, without a Jewish character. The book was written by Joel Kovel, distinguished professor of social studies at Bard College. The publisher is Pluto Press, a British outfit that describes itself as having a left-wing
Source: NYT
Sep 11, 2007
[Editor's Note: Haleh Esfandiari is the wife of George Mason University historian Shaul Bakhash.]
Haleh Esfandiari, the Iranian-American academic held for four months in solitary confinement in the political wing of Iran’s infamous Evin prison, said in Washington on Monday that she was able to endure by sticking to a rigorous daily exercise regimen and blocking out anything that reminded her of home.
On the three occasions when the prison dinner was an Iranian dish call
Source: Chris Heard at Higgaion (blog)
Sep 10, 2007
[Chris Heard, Associate Professor of Religion at Pepperdine University.]
A couple of years ago, I welcomed a camera crew into my office for some interviews about Old Testament stories. The crew went away and I never heard from them again, until I e-mailed the production company last week to find out what ever became of the footage. A representative of that company promptly e-mailed me back and kindly sent out a screener of the DVD that is scheduled to release in October.
Source: Spiegel
Sep 10, 2007
In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, American military historian Gabriel Kolko argues that the situation in Iraq is worse than ever and that the artificial nation, created after World War I, is breaking up. The "surge," he says, is also failing.
SPIEGEL: The long awaited results of the "surge" are now in. Has the surge succeeded? Is there reason for optimism in Iraq?
KOLKO: Both United States General David H. Petraeus and US Ambassador Ryan C. Crocke
Source: Chris Bray at HNN blog, Cliopatria
Sep 10, 2007
"The Vietnam experience left the military leadership feeling that they should advise against involvement in counterinsurgencies unless specific, perhaps unlikely, circumstances obtain -- i.e. domestic public support, the promise of a quick campaign, and freedom to employ whatever force is necessary to achieve rapid victory. In light of such criteria, committing U.S. units to counterinsurgencies appears to be a very problematic proposition, difficult to conclude before domestic support erodes and
Source: Mills Kelly at http://edwired.org
Sep 10, 2007
... Back in the late 1990s H-Net was the coolest way for academics, teachers, and others with an interest in the humanities and social sciences to connect, discuss, and even engage in some serious scholarship online. Of course, in the late 1990s, email was still the killer app of the Internet and we still hadn’t experienced non-stop spamming, nor could we imagine the rapid growth of blogs as a means of communication and community building. And we certainly didn’t know how social networking would
Source: NYT
Sep 10, 2007
Cuesta Benberry, one of the leading historians and archivists of American quilting, whose research made it clear that the contribution of black artists to the form reflected more than patterns drawn from their African roots, died on Aug. 23 in St. Louis. She was 83.
Her death was announced by the American Folk Art Museum in Manhattan, to which, in 2004, Ms. Benberry donated her vast collection of research papers, historical books, museum catalogs, periodicals and original patterns t
Source: HNN Staff summary. Click here to watch the video. (Scroll down.)
Sep 10, 2007
[Editor's Note: Haleh Esfandiari is the wife of George Mason University historian Shaul Bakhash.]
U.S. scholar Haleh Esfandiari says she may never feel safe enough to go back to Iran. She was interviewed by NBC News back home at last after her long ordeal. She said while she was incarcerated she wondered if the world had forgotten about her. She tried hard not to think of her family. She said exercise helped. She'd do dozens of push-ups; keeping track of the count helped keep he
Source: NYT
Sep 10, 2007
A tenure bid by an assistant professor of anthropology at Barnard College who has critically examined the use of archaeology in Israel has put Columbia University once again at the center of a struggle over scholarship on the Middle East.
The professor, Nadia Abu El-Haj, who is of Palestinian descent, has been at Barnard since 2002 and has won many awards and grants, including a Fulbright scholarship and fellowships at Harvard and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE)
Sep 10, 2007
In the 1940s, the history department at Yale University seemed more like "a gentleman's club" than anything else, writes William G. Palmer, a professor of history at Marshall University. And like most history departments at the time, he says, the Yale faculty was all male, "extremely conservative," and "very WASPish." There were no blacks or Jews, and most faculty members had Yale degrees. The department was also "Anglocentric, with its greatest concentration o
Source: Newsday
Sep 9, 2007
Anthony Giacchino had just started as a producer at the History Channel in 1996 and was looking for a topic for his first documentary film.
During a chance meeting at a church service, his former high school history teacher told him about a group of anti-war activists who, 25 years earlier, were caught red-handed breaking into a draft board office in Camden. Remarkably, they won a rare and momentous legal victory for the anti-war movement.
The teacher brought up the s
Source: David Corn in the NYT Book Review
Sep 9, 2007
[From a review of Burton Hersh's BOBBY AND J. EDGAR
The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America.]
“Bobby and J. Edgar” is little more than a recycling of previously published books. Hersh lists 54 people he interviewed, but about a quarter of them are authors and journalists who have tilled the overworked Kennedy field. The rest offer little that is new. Worse, Hersh appears to regard all sources as equal. If an assertion, particula
Source: David Oshinsky in the NYT Book Review
Sep 9, 2007
[David Oshinsky holds the Jack S. Blanton chair in history at the University of Texas at Austin. His most recent book, “Polio: An American Story,” won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for history.]
In the summer of 1950, Alfred A. Knopf Inc. turned down the English-language rights to a Dutch manuscript after receiving a particularly harsh reader’s report. The work was “very dull,” the reader insisted, “a dreary record of typical family bickering, petty annoyances and adolescent emotions.” Sales wou
Source: NYT
Sep 9, 2007
A NEW book out last week reported that President Bush wants to hop on the lecture circuit when he leaves office in 2009 — “replenish the ol’ coffers,” as he put it in Robert Draper’s account of his presidency, “Dead Certain.”
“I don’t know what my dad gets,” the president told Mr. Draper. “But it’s more than 50, 75” thousand dollars a speech. He added, “Clinton’s making a lot of money.”
In recent years, virtually every president has left office and parlayed his experien
Source: NYT
Sep 9, 2007
EVERY president comes into office complaining about the 11th-hour judicial appointments and midnight regulations left on the White House doorstep by his predecessor. And every president turns around and does the same to his successor.
Adams did it to Jefferson. Teddy Roosevelt did it to Taft. Carter did it to Reagan. Bush I did it to Clinton. Clinton really did it to Bush II.
And now President Bush has his cabinet and staff busily writing far-reaching rules to keep his
Source: NYT
Sep 9, 2007
It used to be that updated editions of world atlases mainly tracked the shifting of borders and changes in the names of cities and countries determined by politics, diplomacy or war.
The surface of the planet itself was a relatively constant template in the background. You could render it in more detail with, say, better satellite data, but the basics didn’t change much.
Now, though, the accelerating and intensifying impact of human activities is visibly altering the pl
Source: CanWest News Service
Sep 8, 2007
An Ottawa historian has launched a campaign to place a small, largely overlooked image of a cloaked and bearded man from a 460-year-old map of Canada at the centre of this country's historical iconography.
Alastair Sweeny said the gesturing figure with black boots and a red hat may be the only authentic likeness of Jacques Cartier, the French explorer who first reached inland Canada and set the stage for European settlement.
Insisting the picture has been ignored for centurie
Source: AP
Sep 8, 2007
Photographer and historian Duane Zemper is not accustomed to being on the side of the camera. He's also doesn't know what "all the fuss" is about.
Zemper's perspective on World War II aboard B-17 bombers as an Army photo officer will be a part of a seven-part series focusing on the war that will air on public television. The project is sponsored nationally by the Public Broadcasting Service.
"WWII: Through the Lens of Duane Zemper" will be previewed
Source: http://chronicle.augusta.com
Sep 8, 2007
Augusta's best known historian, Dr. Edward J. Cashin, died today, two days after collapsing while working on a book in Atlanta.
Erick Montgomery, executive director of Historic Augusta, confirmed the death. Funeral arrangments have not been announced.
Dr. Cashin, professor emeritus and chair emeritus of the department of history at Augusta State University, authored or co-authored more than two dozen books, including The Story of Augusta and The Brightest Arm of the Sav
Source: Max Boot at his Commentary blog
Sep 7, 2007
Fred Kagan, of the American Enterprise Institute, has become one of the most prolific and influential voices when it comes to Iraq policy. Just keeping up with his writings can be a full-time job—but a rewarding one. What he has to say is always worth paying attention to. He has a number of new articles that are “must reads” for those following the debate over the war and the surge.• This
