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: John Elrick
Feb 13, 2007
Mr. Elrick is a History News Network intern.The appointment of historian Drew Gilpin Faust as Harvard’s next president has drawn a considerable response since the University’s official announcement on Sunday. Dr. Faust will be the first woman to head the prestigious institution in its 371-year history. Her appointment comes on the heels of the controversy generated by previous president Lawrence Summer’s remarks about the academic aptitude of women. Faust was a profes
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Feb 12, 2007
A history professor who has written controversially about Islam had an invitation to speak at George Mason University withdrawn, according to news reports, but the talk apparently will be rescheduled.
John D. Lewis, an assistant professor of history at Ashland University, in Ohio, had been scheduled to speak on February 28 on the topic "No Substitute for Victory: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism."
But some Muslim students protested, according to the Assoc
Source: Jeffrey Wasserstrom at MSNBC.com
Feb 12, 2007
Larry Gonick, a polymath with a sense of the absurd, has mastered the art of producing graphic, pun-filled books that simultaneously entertain readers and educate them about the past. Publishers Weekly aptly described his multivolume "Cartoon History of the Universe" as "hilariously informative," and his "Cartoon History of the United States" took playful potshots at many patriotic conceits. Now Gonick has re-entered the historical fray with "The Cartoon Histor
Source: Haaretz (Tel Aviv)
Feb 12, 2007
The author of a book on the use of blood by Jews in Ashkenazi communities in the Middle Ages said Sunday, in the face of the furor its publication aroused, "I will not give up my devotion to the truth and academic freedom even if the world crucifies me."
In an interview with Haaretz from Rome, Professor Ariel Toaff said he stood behind the contention of his book, "Pasque di Sangue," just published in Italy, that there is a factual basis for some of the medieval b
Source: NYT
Feb 12, 2007
Douglas L. Wilson will become a two-time winner of the Lincoln Prize today when his book “Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words” (Knopf) is designated the recipient of $50,000 and a bronze cast of an Augustus Saint-Gaudens portrait sculpture of Abraham Lincoln. Professor Wilson, a co-director of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., won in 1999 for “Honor’s Voice: The Transformation of Abraham Lincoln.” “Douglas Wilson’s incisive analysis of Abraham Linc
Source: NYT
Feb 12, 2007
Recalling her coming of age as the only girl in a privileged, tradition-bound family in Virginia horse country, Drew Gilpin Faust, 59, has often spoken of her “continued confrontations” with her mother “about the requirements of what she usually called femininity.” Her mother, Catharine, she has said, told her repeatedly, “It’s a man’s world, sweetie, and the sooner you learn that the better off you’ll be.”
Instead, Dr. Faust left home at an early age, to be educated at Concord Acad
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Feb 12, 2007
In late September, I finally received a response to the question I had been asking the Bush administration for more than two years: Why was my work visa revoked in late July 2004, just days before I was to take up a position as a professor of Islamic studies and the Henry Luce chair of religion, conflict, and peace building at the University of Notre Dame? Initially neither I nor the university was told why; officials only made a vague reference to a provision of the U.S. Patriot Act that allows
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Feb 12, 2007
Israel’s Bar-Ilan University expressed “its strongest reservations” on Sunday about a book by one of its professors that reportedly suggests that some ritual murders of Christians by Jews might have actually taken place in the Middle Ages, The Jerusalem Post reported.
The book, by Ariel Toaff, was published in Italy last week as Pasque di Sangue, or Bloody Passovers. It delves into centuries-old allegations that Jews added the blood of Christian children to wine and unleavened bread
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Feb 12, 2007
The ascent of Drew Gilpin Faust to the presidency of Harvard University culminates the rapid climb of someone who had no ties to the institution when she arrived six years ago. Ms. Faust is founding dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She is the only one of the 10 members of the Council of Deans who represents an academic department without a full-time student body or faculty.
It is highly unusual for Harvard to choose such an "outsider." She is the first H
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Feb 12, 2007
In her first public address as Harvard University's new president, Drew Gilpin Faust said she intends to break down barriers between disciplines and schools while pressing for more collaboration at the university, setting an example she hopes will ripple throughout higher education.
"I can imagine no higher calling and no more exciting adventure than to serve as president of Harvard," she said, while reading from prepared
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Feb 12, 2007
The night before Drew Gilpin Faust was formally named president of Harvard University, women involved in efforts to promote female leaders in academe happened to be gathering in Washington for workshops and networking sessions held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Council on Education. During a fund-raising pitch at a dinner, women were reminded that the programs they support might just help someone who could become “the next president of Harvard.”
While Faust
Source: Jamie Glazov interview posted at frontpagemag.com
Feb 12, 2007
[Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy.]
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Geoffrey Roberts, a Professor of History at the University College Cork, Ireland. He is a frequent contributor to British, Irish and American newspapers and to popular history journals and he has acted as a consultant for a number of TV and radio documentaries. His publications include Victory at Stalingrad and
Source: Boston Globe
Feb 11, 2007
... Faust, an award-winning historian expected to be named Harvard's president today, reveals much about herself and her work habits in a three-decade career as a scholar of the American south. Her goal, she has said in interviews, is not simply to tell the stories of the neglected. Instead, colleagues say, Faust wants to confront the truth -- even when it is ugly.
Pulitzer-winning historian Steven Hahn , who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, where Faust taught American history f
Source: Boston Globe
Feb 11, 2007
Harvard University on Sunday named historian Drew Gilpin Faust as its first female president, ending a lengthy and secretive search to find a successor to Lawrence Summers and his tumultuous five-year tenure.
The seven-member Harvard Corporation elected Faust, a noted scholar of the American South and dean of Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, as the university's 28th president. The board of overseers recommended her for the post.
Faust, 59, recognized the sign
Source: Carol Iannone in Academic Questions, the journal of the National Association of Scholars
Feb 10, 2007
John Agresto, a longtime N.A.S. supporter and member of its Advisory Board, served as president of St. John’s College, Santa Fe for over 10 years. From September 2003 until the end of June 2004 he served as the Senior Adviser for Higher Education and Scientific Research, working with the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) under Paul Bremer in Iraq.
Agresto has taught political philosophy and American government at the University of Toronto, Kenyon, Duke, Wabash College, and the N
Source: Jon Wiener at his blog at the Nation
Feb 10, 2007
[Jon Wiener started writing for The Nation in 1984. Since then he’s written more than 100 stories and reviews for the magazine, many about American history, university politics, and California life. He’s also professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, and a Los Angeles radio host.]
Drew Faust, the historian who h
Source: Email from Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez circulating on the Internet
Feb 10, 2007
PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) announced it is airing the new Ken Burns documentary series, THE WAR, in September 2007. The seven-part documentary series, directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, explores the history and horror of the Second World War from an American perspective by following the fortunes of so-called ordinary men and women who get caught up in the greatest cataclysm in human history. It is a 14 hour documentary.
The documentary was previewed Novem
Source: Heather Mac Donald at frontpagemag.com
Feb 9, 2007
The feminist takeover of Harvard is imminent. The Harvard Crimson reported yesterday that the university is about to name as its new president Drew Gilpin Faust, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Harvard's Corporation, which is likely to recommend Faust to the university's Board of Overseers for confirmation, could not have more clearly repudiated Lawrence Summers's all-too-brief reign of meritocracy and academic honesty, or more openly signaled that Harvard will now be the lea
Source: Seattle Times
Feb 9, 2007
With 12 hours left on his voice, Walt Crowley popped in a tape at the party in his Phinney Ridge home Thursday night. On it, a 20-years-younger Crowley delivered a speech to Vietnam veterans at Seattle Center, his tone true, his pitch sure.
When it stopped, he turned on the mic. Without it, the crowd would not have heard Crowley's voice. It's now just a gravelly rasp.
Crowley, the longtime chronicler of Seattle's people, places and things, has cancer of the larynx.
Source: Harvard Crimson
Feb 9, 2007
... Faust, who attended Bryn Mawr College as an undergraduate before entering Penn’s graduate program in American civilization, will also be the first Harvard president since 1672 without a degree from this school.
Until 2001, her academic career had been confined to Penn. She taught there ever since she received her Ph.D. in 1975 and she became the Annenberg professor of history in 1989. From 1996 to 2001, she served as director of women’s studies.
When Faust was app
