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: Interview in Reason
Jan 12, 2007
Last week, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released a “Portrait of Generation Next,” a wide-ranging collection of survey data from Americans aged 18-25. The report collapsed a generation into a few crisp adjectives. Generation Nexters, it turns out, are tolerant, tech-savvy, idealistic, and liberal-leaning. And alongside all of their catalogued assumptions, one goes unsaid: None of them will find it strange that they and 42 million peers have been distilled into a press rele
Source: London Free Press
Jan 12, 2007
One of the world's best known historians shared his fascination for maps yesterday, using them to talk about the Holocaust at a University of Western Ontario lecture.
Sir Martin Gilbert, Winston Churchill's official biographer, said he began making maps to illustrate his research in 1959 and has been doing it ever since.
He said mapping helps him to focus, verify and visualize the information he gathers.
It's an important part of his process in writing hist
Source: Rick Shenkman, reporting for HNN
Jan 12, 2007
At the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in Atlanta one panel was devoted to Katrina. Fifteen people showed up for the discussion, which was held at the unappealing time slot of 9am on Saturday morning. (4800 attended the convention.)
Pessimism pervaded the room. The chair, Tulane's Lawrence Powell, confessed that the only bright spot was the passion with which volunteers from across the country had descended on the city to extend a helping hand. The federal g
Source: Rick Shenkman, reporting for HNN
Jan 12, 2007
A patently distraught Felipe Fernandez-Armesto told HNN today in a phone interview that the Atlanta policeman who arrested him at the annual convention of the American Historical Association for jaywalking has provided the media with a twisted version of events. He indicated he may sue to clear his good name.
Source: Robert Townsend at the AHA blog
Jan 12, 2007
In addition to the resolutions adopted at the annual business meeting, the governing Council of the American Historical Association adopted a number of other policy and professional resolutions at its meeting this past weekend in Atlanta, Georgia. The Council adopted new policy guidelines on when the AHA should take a public position, endorsed the idea of including history in the No Child Left Behind Act, and rejected some of the underlying assumptions about history in Florida’s A++ Plan for Edu
Source: Network of Concerned Historians
Jan 12, 2007
Dear colleagues,
Among the more than 250 college professors who have been killed since
30 April 2003 in Iraq are the following historians:
**Khalid M. al-Janabi, PhD. in Islamic history, faculty member at the
College of Art, Babylon University. Date of assassination unknown.
**Essam Sharif Mohammed (also spelled Hissam Sharif), Ph.D in
History, assistant professor at the College of Art, Baghdad
University. Date of assassination: 25 October 2003.
**Mahfoudh al-Qazz
Source: Editorial in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jan 12, 2007
Other than librarians, it's hard to imagine a less rambunctious group than historians. Yet, one of the world's premier historians ended up in jail during last week's American Historical Association convention in downtown Atlanta.
It was not an academic debate gone amok that sparked the arrest of British historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto. It was jaywalking.
The arrest prompted a letter of protest from the historical association; a photo posted on the Internet shows the
Source: CBN News
Jan 11, 2007
President Bush, in a primetime speech Wednesday, admitted that he erred in having failed to send more troops to Iraq.
As part of a new war plan, Bush will be sending 21,500 additional troops to Iraq to stomp out the sectarian violence that has been ravaging the nation and threatening to send it into civil war.
However, a recent AP poll suggests that most Americans oppose such a move.
Such overwhelming opposition reflects increasing doubt that the U.S. was c
Source: NYT
Jan 11, 2007
Roberta Wohlstetter, a military and foreign policy analyst whose work on the intelligence failures before the attack on Pearl Harbor was cited by the 9/11 commission, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 94.
The cause was pneumonia, said her daughter, Joan Wohlstetter-Hall.
“What does Pearl Harbor tell us about the possibility of a surprise attack today, with possible consequences of an even greater and perhaps more fatal magnitude?” Mrs. Wohlstetter asked 45 years ag
Source: Rick Shenkman, reporting for HNN
Jan 11, 2007
Two of the country's leading biographers of TR, Edward Renehan and Edmund Morris, have advised The Theodore Roosevelt Association to disband.
The Association has been largely leaderless since the death of its longtime head, John Gable. (Renehan stepped in as a temporary replacement for 16 months.)
Both now argue in letters to the Association that the organization should declare victory and close up shop. There is no longer any danger, they contend, that TR will ever b
Source: Jason Leopold at the website of Truthout.org
Jan 11, 2007
[ Jason Leopold is a former Los Angeles bureau chief for Dow Jones Newswire. He has written over 2,000 stories on the California energy crisis and received the Dow Jones Journalist of the Year Award in 2001 for his coverage on the issue as well as a Project Censored award in 2004. ]
One of the key architects of President Bush's disastrous Iraq war policy was responsible for writing the president's new plan calling for an increase in US troops in the region.
By relyi
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jan 11, 2007
As accusations mount about overzealous jaywalking enforcement by the Atlanta Police Department, city officials are standing behind the officer who arrested distinguished academic Felipe Fernandez-Armesto last Thursday for disorderly conduct.
When asked about the ongoing controversy during a Wednesday news conference, Mayor Shirley Franklin refused comment until the investigation of Officer Kevin Leonpacher's treatment of the history professor at Tufts University in Massachusetts is
Source: AHA Blog
Jan 10, 2007
In a letter to Mayor Shirley Franklin of Atlanta, Georgia, AHA President Barbara Weinstein, Past President Linda K. Kerber, and Executive Director Arnita A. Jones, expressed the AHA Council’s concern over an incident between historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto and an Atlanta police officer, that began with jaywalking and escalated to an 8 hour ordeal in jail. Below is an excerpt from the letter, and a link to the full text.
Dear Mayor Franklin:
We write to you on behalf
Source: Antoon De Baets at the website of Network of Concerned Historians
Jan 10, 2007
Dear colleagues,
Scholars at Risk (SAR), New York, is disbributing the summary profile of an Uighur historian and anthropologist at risk of persecution when returning to China and currently seeking assistance (see below). I invite you to read it carefully and, in the event that you could assist, to ask SAR for his CV and other supporting materials. Thank you.
With best wishes.
Antoon De Baets
(Network of Concerned Historians)
PS: For oth
Source: Rick Shenkman, reporting for HNN
Jan 10, 2007
It took a few days, but the story of the arrest of historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto for jaywalking in Atlanta at the AHA has now been picked up by the media around the world.
HNN broke the story on Sunday morning. On Tuesday the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran its first story.
On Wednesday morning (EST) the London Evening Standard put the story on its frontpage, emphasizing Professor Fernandez-Armesto's British credenti
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jan 10, 2007
The Atlanta police officer being investigated for his treatment of a prominent British historian said Tuesday that Felipe Fernandez-Armesto is not the innocent abroad he claims to be.
The Tufts University professor, who was arrested last Thursday and charged with disorderly conduct, contends he was assaulted without provocation for merely jaywalking across Courtland Street. But Officer Kevin Leonpacher insists he is no rogue cop and suggests perhaps the professor is a bit of a scoff
Source: Rick Shenkman, reporting for HNN
Jan 9, 2007
Historians critical of limits on free speech on college campuses had been somewhat hopeful that this year they could persuade their peers at the AHA Annual Convention in Atlanta to approve a resolution at Saturday's Business Meeting opposing "the use of speech codes to restrict academic freedom."
But in the end the body approved a weak sister resolution critical only of free speech zones.
Source: WSJ editorial
Jan 9, 2007
When Roberta Wohlstetter set out, in the early 1960s, to explain why the U.S. had been surprised by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, she confronted a puzzle that to some seemed like a conspiracy.
Unlike classic military surprises, the U.S. had received ample intelligence that the Japanese were prepared to attack the Hawaiian base. That nothing was done to remove American ships to safety was proof, for Clare Booth Luce among others, that Franklin Roosevelt had "lied us into
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jan 9, 2007
[HNN Edior: HNN broke the following story over the weekend. Click here to watch a video interview with Professor Fernandez-Armesto.]
British historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, author of the 2006 book "Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration," found the streets of downtown Atlanta much more difficult to navigate during last week's annual convention of the American Historians Association.
Fernandez-Arme
Source: Voice of America
Jan 8, 2007
John Hope Franklin helped Americans rediscover, and rethink, some critical chapters in their nation's history. The 92-year-old historian's influence on the prism of American history has been so profound that in 1995 he was awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, when Bill Clinton presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
"John Hope Franklin, the son of the South, has always been a moral compass for America, always pointing us in the direction of tru
