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: AHA Blog
Jun 5, 2007
At its biennial meeting on Sunday June 3, 2007, the AHA Council released the following statement (see the press room page on the AHA web site) in support of the recent letter from the Middle East Studies Association on the detention of scholars in Iran:
"We, the members of the Council of the American Historical Association, write to express our support for the recent statements issued by the Middle East Studies Association protesting the arrests and detention of Dr. Haleh Esfan
Source: Robert Dallek in a book review in the NYT
Jun 5, 2007
... In “Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton,” Jeff Gerth, a former reporter for The New York Times, and Don Van Natta Jr., an investigative reporter at the paper, have written what will become mandatory reading for Mrs. Clinton’s opponents.
Mr. Gerth and Mr. Van Natta see themselves as relating the unvarnished truth about Senator Clinton. “Never before has such a high-profile candidate occupied the spotlight for so long without the public’s learning the facts
Source: John Crace in the Guardian
Jun 5, 2007
Almost anything can look inevitable in hindsight. The rise of Hitler, the Iraq war, even this interview. As one event follows another, the public and the private appear to interconnect in a seamless arc of mechanistic determinism, such that the only thing left for a historian to do is attribute the correct degrees of causality. It's an attractive way of making sense of the past, but what seems predictable now rarely looked that way when it happened.
This is the starting point for Fa
Source: Middle East Forum website
Jun 5, 2007
The Middle East Forum has established a Legal Project to protect researchers and analysts who work on the topics of terrorism, terrorist funding, and radical Islam.
Researchers and analysts have been repeatedly targeted in legal actions ...
Such lawsuits are often predatory, filed without a serious expectation of winning, but undertaken as a means to bankrupt, distract, intimidate, and demoralize defendants. Plaintiffs seek less to prevail in the courtroom than to wear
Source: Jonathan Zimmerman in the New York Daily News
Jun 5, 2007
[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York
University. He is the author of “Innocents Abroad: American Teachers in
the American Century” (Harvard University Press).]
In 1936, historian Howard Beale published a book entitled, “Are
American Teachers Free?” In 855 not-so-succinct pages, Beale gave a
simple answer: no. Across the United States, schools placed strict
limits upon teachers’ speech, manners, and conduct. Some schools barred
teachers from dancing, smo
Source: http://www.international.ucla.edu
Jun 4, 2007
Fred G. Notehelfer directed the UCLA Center for Japanese Studies for 16 years and co-directed an East Asian Studies consortium in Southern California for 20 years. He will continue teaching at UCLA for another year before retiring.
***
As a graduate student in history, Gordon Berger came across a publication in the Yale library that he says was "kept under lock and key." It was called the Harvard East Asian Research Center Papers on Japan. After receiving perm
Source: Eboo Patel in the WaPo
Jun 4, 2007
[ Eboo Patel is the Founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core and the author of Acts of Faith.]
The first assignment I give the graduate students in my class at Chicago Theological Seminary is Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations. I figure it is only fair for them to do a thorough reading of perhaps the most prevalent theory of our times.
And then I spend the rest of the semester trying to dig out of that hole.
It’s not that my s
Source: http://www.nysut.org
Jun 4, 2007
Kate Mullany is more than a 19th-century labor pioneer for Celine Casey's students. She's a neighbor. "I teach at School 14 in Troy and my kids could walk to the Kate Mullany historic site," said Casey, a K-1 remediation teacher and Troy Teachers Association member. "I'd love to incorporate information about her into my curriculum."
Casey attended the Teaching Labor History Symposium at NYSUT headquarters in May. The day-long forum helped teachers better incorpor
Source: Jon Wiener in the Nation
Jun 4, 2007
Israel went to war 40 years ago this week more because of "psychological weakness" than because of a genuine strategic threat--that's the conclusion of Tom Segev, one of Israel's leading historians, and author of the new book 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East. June 5 is the 40th anniversary of the beginning of Israel's Six-Day war, when the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began. I spoke with Tom Segev on the phone in Jerusalem on Monday.
Source: BBC
Jun 4, 2007
The origins of intricate carvings which line the walled garden of a Scottish castle have finally been discovered, solving centuries of mystery.
The 400-year-old Edzell Castle near Brechin attracts thousands of visitors.
It was not known where the 14 carvings, depicting the Liberal arts on the south wall and Cardinal Virtues on the west wall, had come from.
But their origins have now been revealed as those of Flemish Renaissance master - Maarten de Vos.
Source: http://media.www.thedailyaztec.com
Jun 4, 2007
When one thinks about history professors, the stereotype of ancient-looking men in tweed jackets who drone on about past events that seem to have little significance today usually comes to mind. San Diego State history professor Edward Blum challenges this perception.
"History is a profession that's being written by youngish folks with energy, new ideas, approaches and insights," Blum said. "They're dedicated to seeing the past connected to the present."
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education summary of article in The Hedgehog Review
Jun 4, 2007
There has been a "basic transformation of the nature and function of intellectuals," writes Richard Wolin, a professor of history, comparative literature, and political science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. "The visionary and utopian intellectuals of the old stamp," he argues, "have been replaced by a more modest and humble breed."
Mr. Wolin, whose essay is part of a special issue about "intellectuals and public respons
Source: Richard J. Evans in the Nation
Jun 4, 2007
It's been fascinating following Ian Kershaw's trajectory as a historian over the years. Trained as a specialist in the social and economic history of English monasteries in the Middle Ages, Kershaw changed countries and centuries in the late 1970s, in search of topics more relevant than medieval estate management. Two pathbreaking books were the result: The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich (published in German in 1980; translated into English in 1987) and Popular Opi
Source: Alan Wolfe in the WaPo
Jun 3, 2007
[Alan Wolfe is director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College and is writing a book about why liberalism matters.]
It has become a cliché to point out that while academic historians write dense, imponderable tomes to get tenure, popular historians satisfy the public hunger with powerfully written and engaging narratives. This cliché could be disproved in two ways: Academics could write terrific histories, and popular historians could write dread
Source: Robert Sibley, The Ottawa Citizen
Jun 3, 2007
Toward the end of the 19th century, Prussian leader Otto von Bismarck remarked that the most important thing to know about the 20th century was that Americans spoke English.
His point was obvious: an alliance between the British Empire and the United States, the world's largest English-speaking states, would create the most powerful political entity on the planet.
Bismarck's remarks proved prescient, for which we can be thankful. If not for the willingness of the Englis
Source: Huffington Post (Blog) Click on SOURCE for embedded links.
Jun 3, 2007
Ok, here's what happened.
I came to New Hampshire with the Creative Coalition for a panel tomorrow morning and was supposed to be in the auditorium for the debate but because I am a journalist, they were told I would have to wait in the spin room. When I got to the spin room, which was an empty gymnasium, I noticed that there were chairs located on a balcony above us. So I went up there -- no one asked me for my ID or anything -- and went over to the bar and asked if it was a cash b
Source: CNN
Jun 3, 2007
[HNN Editor: Click here to read Eric Alterman's account of what happened.]
MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN ) – Columnist and author Eric Alterman has been released after being arrested Sunday night inside the debate spin room. He was charged with criminal trespass after police say he refused repeated orders to leave.
Goffstown, N.H. police said Alterman was in the spin room as a guest of the Creative Coalition and went t
Source: http://www.abc.net.au
Jun 3, 2007
ELIZABETH JACKSON: Two hundred and thirty years ago, a hardy American called John Ledyard became the first from his country to travel to the Middle East.
He went with the aim of making a difference. He was the first American to do so, but certainly not the last.
American born academic, Michael Oren, has written a book about the history of US entanglements in the Middle East.
Called Power, Faith and Fantasy it traces the various motives and the many misund
Source: Austin American-Statesman
Jun 3, 2007
It's not at all hard to explain. Music helps prominent and prolific historian and author Douglas Brinkley write. Austin has lots of music.
So here Brinkley, his wife and three children are, settling into their big new house in Stratford Hills off Red Bud Trail, Brinkley having just left his job at Tulane University in New Orleans — where he was director of the Theodore Roosevelt Center for American Civilization and a history professor — for a new post at Rice University in Houston.
Source: Gil Troy in the course of a review of Segev's 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year that Transformed the Middle East
Jun 2, 2007
As Israelis celebrate the 40th anniversary of their speedy triumph over hostile neighbours, both internal and external critics are questioning the Six Day War's justification, let alone its results. The pivotal moral question regards Israel's decision to launch its pre-emptive air raid, which destroyed Egypt's air force on June 5, 1967. Did Israel act rashly? Did the attack reflect a delusional anxiety rather than a realistic threat assessment?
In 2002, historian Michael Oren's maje
