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: Ann Hulbert in the NYT
May 27, 2007
... Where ideological clashes doomed a quest for national standards in the 1990s, pragmatic calculations might tip the balance in favor now. Let the federal government pay for a national test and the formulation of standards, suggests Diane Ravitch, a clear-eyed historian of school reforms who was an assistant secretary of education during George H.W. Bush’s administration. The move could save the states the estimated half-billion dollars they spend on their own testing programs — and, Ravitch n
Source: Historian John Price writing at the website of Japan Focus
May 26, 2007
Fifty years ago, the Canadian diplomat and noted Japan scholar, Herbert Norman, committed suicide, stepping off the roof of a nine-storey building in downtown Cairo. Canadian ambassador to Egypt at the time, Norman was 47 years old and his death on April 4, 1957 provoked a crisis in Canada-U.S. relations.
Norman’s last act came in the wake of accusations made in the U.S. Senate that he was disloyal, a possible communist spy. This was the third round of such charges. On each occasion
Source: WaPo
May 26, 2007
Eugen Weber, an eminent historian whose books on France and modern Europe have influenced a generation of scholars and students, and who became well known for a 1989 public television series on history, died May 17 of pancreatic cancer at his home in Los Angeles. He was 82.
A professor at the University of California at Los Angeles for more than 50 years, Mr. Weber was a prolific writer with wide-ranging scholarly interests. The most popular of his more than a dozen books is probabl
Source: Pter Steinfels in the NYT
May 26, 2007
In January, Gary Dorrien was installed as the Reinhold Niebuhr professor of social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Niebuhr, who taught social ethics at Union from 1928 to 1961, was the most prominent and influential American theologian of the last hundred years. His evolving notion of “Christian realism” shaped the outlook of Depression-era radicals, World War II interventionists, anti-Communist cold warriors and early civil rights militants. He lectured across the country
Source: Media Matters (liberal website that monitors the media) Click on the SOURCE link for embedded links.
May 25, 2007
On May 24, Media Matters for America offered a brief overview of criticism of previous reporting by Jeff Gerth, the co-author of a soon-to-be-released book about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) titled Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton (Little, Brown).
On May 25, The Washington Post published the first news report based on the text of the book, which Gerth wrote with New York Times reporter Don Van Natta Jr. According to the Post, historian Taylor Branch,
Source: Andrew Ferguson in the WSJ
May 25, 2007
... Following a career with the Labor Department -- he retired in the early 1970s -- Mr. Hall turned himself into the world's foremost authority on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Historians, pros and amateurs alike, sought him out for his knowledge and access to his exhaustive files. As one of them put it, James O. Hall knew more about Lincoln's murder than anyone who ever lived, including John Wilkes Booth.
Uncorrupted by graduate degrees, with no thought of professional adv
Source: Eureka Reporter
May 25, 2007
Students and teachers from local high school history classes had an opportunity to learn about an important subject in today’s world — diplomacy — from a person with extensive first-hand experience in the field.
Susan Holly, a senior historian with the State Department, visited Humboldt County on Thursday and Friday to speak to students about the United States government’s role in the Guatemala Coup of 1954.
On Thursday, Holly addressed four separate groups of high school stu
Source: http://www.allheadlinenews.com
May 25, 2007
Waterloo, ON (AHN) - The Klondike Gold Rush attracted 40,000 people from all over the world to Canada's Yukon, to try their luck at finding gold. Now, a website geared towards students is hoping young detectives can piece together clues and answer the question of who started the it all. Ken Coates, a University of Waterloo historian has written the mystery and is inviting students to solve the famous Canadian case.
He told the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, "your job is to do the d
Source: Michigan State University news announcement
May 25, 2007
Frederick Williams, a leading scholar on President James A. Garfield and a long-time former MSU faculty member, died Sunday, May 20. He was 89.
Williams’ passion for American history led to the publication of a four-volume study: The Diary of James A. Garfield. Co-edited with former MSU history professor emeritus Harry J. Brown, the series was published between 1967 and 1982. The Garfield diaries provided historians with an unparalleled look at the era and have become the definitive
Source: WaPo
May 25, 2007
Vicki Kaye Heilig, 61, a former historian general of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, died May 2 at Rowan Regional Medical Center in Salisbury, N.C. She had cancer.
Miss Heilig, a longtime resident of Hagerstown, Md., served as the organization's District of Columbia division president from 1992 to 1994 and from 1998 to 2002. She was historian general from 2002 to 2004 and received the organization's Jefferson Davis Medal.
Friends said Miss Heilig was a driving
Source: NYT
May 25, 2007
Cultural historian; noted curator and author; biographer of three legendary photographers, Robert Capa, Alfred Stieglitz, and Cornell Capa, Founding Director of the International Center of Photography, Richard was Consulting Curator of the Robert and Cornell Capa Archives at ICP. A longtime faculty member, Richard also lectured and wrote extensively on photography and art. His most recent projects for ICP included exhibitions and publications on the work of Robert Capa and Gerda Taro. The Board
Source: American Libraries Online
May 25, 2007
Following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Saad Eskander left the relative safety of England to accept the directorship of the National Library and Archives of Iraq. Librarians and cultural organizations around the world had voiced outrage over the looting and burning that occurred after the takeover, and Eskander was determined to play a role in the recovery and the establishment of a democratic government. He spoke with American Libraries Editor in Chief Leonard Kniffel by mobile phone A
Source: Dave Noon's Blog
May 24, 2007
Fergie, 9 February 2005
That is why the president is more right than he knows to reject calls for an arbitrary departure date. The price of liberty in Iraq will be, if not eternal vigilance on the part of the United States, then certainly 10 years' vigilance.
Fergie, 21 May 2007:
[T]he decision to overthrow Hussein was one of history's great non sequiturs.
Most Americans didn't know who Niall Ferguson was in Spring 2003, so -- unlike those emanating from t
Source: Amy K. Rosenthal at the website of the Weekly Standard
May 24, 2007
THE 1967 SIX DAY WAR has spawned hundreds of books, perhaps most importantly Michael Oren's bestselling Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East.
The war's 40th anniversary commences on June 5th and Oren has continued tracking its importance. He explains now that it, "Not only created the modern Middle East as we know it today, but changed Arab society and politics profoundly. . . . It sounded the death knell for secular Arab nationalism and the man w
Source: HNN Staff, citing report in the NYT
May 24, 2007
Shaul Bakhash is a historian at George Mason University. He is married to Haleh Esfandiari, the American citizen and the director of the Middle Eastern program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington who was arrested by Iran last week.
In an op ed in the NYT today the conservative scholar Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, cites Bakhash's religious background as a factor in his wife's detention:
Just as the form
Source: NYT
May 24, 2007
Kenneth L. Sokoloff, an economic historian who was a leading expert on the role the United States patent system played in technological and productivity advances in the 19th century, died on Monday in Los Angeles. He was 54.
The cause was liver cancer, said his father, Dr. Louis Sokoloff.
Mr. Sokoloff, an economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that in the early age of industrialization, the American patent system was uniquely structured
Source: CNN
May 23, 2007
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: All right, now to your one-of-a-kind experience, a sneak peek into the Reagan diaries. This is the first time the diaries of a U.S. president have ever been released. Historian Douglas Brinkley edited the diaries. Douglas Brinkley is right here with us tonight at the Reagan library. Nice to see you, Doug.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Nice to see you, Greta.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right. So it's very exciting. You got to edit these diari
Source: Press Release -- American Enterprise Institute
May 23, 2007
In response to recent media stories about the Multi-National Force - Iraq (MNF-I), AEI resident scholar Frederick W. Kagan offers the following notes:
This is the first full-scale strategic review undertaken within the U.S. command since General David Petraeus took over as MNF-I commander. Such a review is a normal part of the transition process when a new commander takes charge, and it is generally designed to ensure that the commander and his staff fully understand the realities i
Source: BBC
May 23, 2007
According to the results of the carbon tests, it has been proven that bones in graves, claimed to have been a mass grave of the Armenians in Nusaybin town of southeastern city of Mardin, were in fact bones dating back to 257-597 B.C., Prof Dr Yusuf Halacoglu, chairman of the Turkish History Society (TTK), said on Wednesday [23 May].
Halacoglu and Prof David Gaunt from Swedish Stockholm Soederntoern University carried out researches in Nusaybin and the samples were underwent laborat
Source: Ethiopian Herald
May 23, 2007
"African historians have major obligations to contribute towards the development of greater clarity on the issues - society, state and identity-in African history so that the project of the African Union could be successful," Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin said.
Opening the 4th Congress of the Association of African Historians yesterday, Seyoum indicated that the whole project associated with the Pan-African ideal has been based on a sense of common identity molded by a c
