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: NYT
Feb 9, 2007
Harvard University is planning to name the first woman president in its 371-year history — Drew Gilpin Faust, a historian who runs a research institute at the university, according to university officials close to selection process. Dr. Faust’s ascension would come a year after Lawrence H. Summers, a former Treasury secretary, resigned from the post amid fierce faculty discontent. The opposition erupted in part over Dr. Summers suggestion that intrinsic aptitude could help e
Source: NYT
Feb 9, 2007
Nelson W. Polsby, who marshaled intellectual rigor, lucid writing and a knack for drawing striking lessons from real-life observation in his enduring studies of Congress and the presidency, died on Tuesday at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 72.
The cause was complications of congestive heart failure, his daughter Emily Polsby said.
Mr. Polsby, a political scientist, wrote or edited at least 15 books and scores of articles and edited The American Political Science Re
Source: Statement issued by the SMU history department, reprinted by SMU Daily Press
Feb 8, 2007
As historians at SMU we have no collective position about bringing the Bush Presidential Library, Museum and Institute to this campus. Some of us favor it; others do not. We do believe, however, that there is one related issue on which we can speak. This is the matter of Presidential Order 13233, which gives current and former presidents the power to withhold records in presidential libraries virtually at their discretion.
Like many historians elsewhere, we are worried about several
Source: Rabbi William Berkowitz in the Algemeiner Journal (Brooklyn, N.Y.)
Feb 8, 2007
In any field, distinction comes to very few. It is a rare gift, one that requires total service and dedication. This is especially true of the historian, for the study of the human journey upon earth is an unremitting struggle to exact the fullness of human experience from the voluminous records that have been left behind. To gain distinction as a historian one must have a deep and sympathetic understanding of humankind. Thus, the writer must be a full human being, for his greatness as a histori
Source: AHA Blog
Feb 8, 2007
The National Council for History Education (NCHE), an AHA affiliated society, just announced the winner of its first-ever Paul Gagnon Prize for a K-12 Teacher Exhibiting Exceptional Historical Scholarship. The 2007 award went to Philip Nicolosi, a history and social studies teacher at the West Morris Central High School in Chester, New Jersey.
Mr. Nicolosi has a BA and an MA in history from Villanova University and began teaching at West Morris Central in 1995. Selected from a pool
Source: Telegraph
Feb 8, 2007
A Jewish academic has shocked Italy by claiming Jews murdered Christians for their blood in the Middle Ages so it could be used in rituals.
The details were revealed in the Italian newspaper, the Corriere della Sera, which published extracts of the book, Easter of Blood by Professor Ariel Toaff.
The claims were denied by leading Jewish figures including his father Elio, once the chief Rabbi of Rome.
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In the book, Prof Toaff alleges the
Source: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/news/release
Feb 7, 2007
The litany of woe has become familiar and seemingly overwhelming. The earth is running out of fossil fuel and facing chaotic weather due to global warming. Water will soon be scarce, and world population continues to explode, taxing diminishing resources.
All true to some extent. But despite the temptation for doom and gloom, all is not lost, says Paul Conkin, Distinguished Professor of History, Emeritus, at Vanderbilt University and author of the new book The State of the Earth: E
Source: http://www.venturacountystar.com
Feb 7, 2007
Politicians, present and future, only need to look to the past for lessons in leadership.
Standing on the stage in the Fred Kavli Theatre on Tuesday night, presidential historian and author Doris Kearns Goodwin listed the qualities that made President Lincoln one of the country's great leaders.
"He had a kind of quiet self-confidence that allowed him to put these powerful people in his cadre," Goodwin told the audience gathered to hear her speak as part of the
Source: Email from William Polk to HNN
Feb 7, 2007
I thought you would like to see how the initiative I helped to start is going. This is today's report from Congress. The original lists the 71 current signatories. They are from all over America and both parties. As you know, Chapter 5 of the book George McGovern and I wrote is now a bill before Congress.
Best regards, Bill
Congressional Progressive Caucus
“71 Strong and Growing”
[Note: 7 new Members added i
Source: Daniel Pipes website
Feb 7, 2007
[For a discussion of this event, see"My Disrupted Talk at the University of California-Irvine."](BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)DANIEL PIPES SPEAKING AT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE: ... a war, of lots of despair.UNIDENTIFIED MALE DISRUPTER: Daniel Pipes! Daniel Pipes! [laughter, noises, shouts](END VIDEO CLIP)
Source: http://www.bangkokpost.com
Feb 7, 2007
Historian Charnvit Kasetsiri has launched a fund-raising campaign to fight a defamation charge filed by former Thammasat University rector Khunying Nongyao Chaiseree for comments in a thesis on former prime minister Pridi Banomyong. Mr Charnvit likened the defamation charge as ''terror against intellectuals'' and called on academics to support a ''historical academic freedom fund'' to fight it.
The retired historian was speaking at a Chulalongkorn University seminar on academi
Source: The Hoya
Feb 6, 2007
Starting in the fall, students in the College seeking to fulfill their history requirement will be able to choose from a wider array of introductory courses focused on select regions of the globe.
The new history requirement will allow students to take classes in African, Latin American and Middle Eastern history. The history department presently allows students to fulfill the two-course minimum only through some combination of World History, European Civilization, History of the At
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Feb 6, 2007
The songs sung about John Henry say he knew, when he was a little baby sitting on his mother's knee, that a hammer would be the death of him. They say he grew up strong and drove steel on the railroad. And they agree that one day he took that hammer and raced a steam drill. The drill made it only nine feet into the rock. The man drove in 14 feet and then collapsed, calling for a cool drink of water before he died.
Now a historian believes that he has found the flesh-and-blood man be
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
Feb 6, 2007
A former University of Pennsylvania history professor who specializes in women's studies and is known for her passion for women's rights and racial equality has emerged as a leading candidate for the Harvard University presidency.
Drew Gilpin Faust, 59, who spent 25 years at Penn before moving to Harvard to head its Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in 2001, was reported to be under serious consideration by Harvard's presidential search committee, both the Harvard Crimson and t
Source: Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker
Feb 5, 2007
In “The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare As We Know It” (Houghton Mifflin; $27), David A. Bell, a professor at John Hopkins, tries to restore military history to the center of history. This ambition may come as a surprise to amateur readers, for whom military history i probably already at the center of history. But academics tend to regard it either as old-style history, where seven key battles change everything, or a hobbyist’s history, where Tom Clancy types look
Source: Weekly Standard
Feb 5, 2007
[Joseph Loconte is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the host of the weekly television/Internet program "Britain and America."]
The chill wind and cheerless skies didn't discourage thousands of Londoners from trudging to the Queen Elizabeth II conference center on Saturday, January 20,
Source: WaPo
Feb 5, 2007
J. Merton England, a history professor, author, editor, Fulbright lecturer and National Science Foundation historian, died of colon failure Jan. 25 at Montgomery General Hospital. He was 91.
As historian, Dr. England wrote a history of the independent federal agency, "A Patron of Pure Science: The National Science Foundation's Formative Years, 1945-1957."
It was published in 1984, the same year Dr. England received the first Richard W. Leopold Prize, given by
Source: Email from Omar Dewachi circulating on the Internet
Feb 5, 2007
Dear friends and colleagues,
As some of you know I have been trying to get back to school for the last three months after completing my fieldwork last August in London. Last October, I managed to get an interview at the American Consulate in Montreal, where I am currently residing. The consulate informed me that my application needed to go through security clearance at the US State Department. My minimum wait was supposed to be 3 weeks. Three months later (three days ago), I receiv
Source: http://www.dallasnews.com
Feb 5, 2007
Archivists and historians are urging Southern Methodist University to reject the Bush presidential library unless the administration reverses an executive order that gives former presidents and their heirs the right to keep White House papers secret in perpetuity.
"If the Bush folks are going to play games with the records, no self-respecting academic institution should cooperate," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of Am
Source: MSNBC
Feb 4, 2007
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a small band of warrior-intellectuals -- including a quirky Australian anthropologist, a Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S. attorney general and a military expert on the Vietnam War sharply critical of its top commanders -- in an eleventh-hour effort to reverse the downward trend in the Iraq war.
Army officers tend to refer to the group as "Petraeus guys." They are smart colonels who hav
