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
Oct 9, 2006
... Mr. Hastert [who believes that George Soros and the Democrats are behind the Foley scandal] is a leading figure in a political movement that exemplifies what the historian Richard Hofstadter famously called “the paranoid style in American politics.”
Hofstadter’s essay introducing the term was inspired by his observations of the radical right-wingers who seized control of the Republican Party in 1964. Today, the movement that nominated Barry Goldwater controls both Congress and
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
Oct 9, 2006
Like many Americans of Iranian descent, Hamid Dabashi read an article in the April 17 issue of The New Yorker with anxious dismay.
In that article, Seymour Hersh reported that President Bush's administration was preparing an airstrike against Iran, including the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons.
The president himself dismissed the report as "wild speculation." But Mr. Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia Univer
Source: Wa Po
Oct 9, 2006
Two major American Jewish organizations helped block a prominent New York University historian from speaking at the Polish consulate here last week, saying the academic was too critical of Israel and American Jewry.
The historian, Tony Judt, is Jewish and directs New York University's Remarque Institute, which promotes the study of Europe. Judt was scheduled to talk Oct. 4 to a nonprofit organization that rents space from the consulate. Judt's subject was the Israel lobby in the Uni
Source: John J. Miller at National Review Online
Oct 9, 2006
A decade ago, best-selling author Stephen Ambrose donated $250,000 to the
University of Wisconsin, his alma mater, to endow a professorship in American
military history. A few months later, he gave another $250,000. Until his death
in 2002, he badgered friends and others to contribute additional funds. Today,
more than $1 million sits in a special university account for the
Ambrose-Heseltine Chair in American History, named after its main benefactor and the
long-dead professor who tr
Source: Tom Reiss in the NYT Book Review
Oct 8, 2006
[Tom Reiss is the author of “The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life.”]
In November 2005, Fritz Stern received an award for his life’s work on Germans, Jews and the roots of National Socialism, presented to him by Joschka Fischer, then the German foreign minister. With a frankness that startled some in the audience, Stern, an emeritus professor of European history at Columbia University, peppered his acceptance speech with the similarities he saw between
Source: Steven Erlanger in the NYT
Oct 7, 2006
... Rashid Khalidi, American-born, comes from one of Jerusalem’s most distinguished families, which has also provided another distinguished historian, Walid Khalidi. Together they have done much to provide a Palestinian narrative rooted in their personal histories but disciplined by the standards of Western scholarship.
Rashid Khalidi’s latest book, “The Iron Cage,” is at heart a historical essay, an effort to decide why the Palestinians, unlike so many other peoples and tribes, hav
Source: Steven Plaut in The American Thinker
Oct 5, 2006
The new academic school year is well underway. But there is one school in which this year will determine once and for all whether it will henceforth be considered to be a bona fide “university”, or merely a make-pretend parody of one.
That institution is DePaul University.
This year will witness the most important decision in DePaul’s entire history, ever since it was first founded by the Catholic “Vincentians”. Over the next few months, DePaul will be deciding whet
Source: Clare Spark, in an email sent to H-HOAC: A Forum for scholars, serious students, and all who want to participate in a scholarly discussion of the History of American Communism (HOAC)
Oct 5, 2006
I have been thinking, with some agitation, about Bettina Aptheker's
astonishing revelation of incest, as reported by Chris Phelps' review
in the _Chronicle of Higher Education_ ever since it was posted
yesterday. I find it even more astonishing that the review accepts this
and her other claims against her father (low pay for black help,
criticism of Jewish passivity in the Holocaust) at face value.
Moreover, as some other commentators have
noted, it is passing strange that she wait
Source: Ig Noble website
Oct 5, 2006
The 2006 Ig Nobel Prize winners were awarded on Thursday night, October 5, at the 16th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard's Sanders Theatre.
[Ig Noble Prizes are a spoof of the Noble Prize. They are awarded annually to those with quirky achievements. In 2005 people doing history won several prizes: " James Watson of Massey University, New Zealand, for his scholarly study, 'The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley’s Exploding Trousers.' " The American Nudis
Source: Email from David Beito to members of Richard Jensen's CNET list
Oct 4, 2006
At the upcoming Atlanta conference of the American Historical
Association, a group of historians will propose a strongly worded
resolution (shown below) opposing the use of speech codes to restrict
academic freedom. The vote will take place at the business meeting for
the general membership on Saturday, January 6, 2007 in the Fulton/Cobb
Room at the Atlanta Hilton.
To get the resolution on the agenda, however, twenty-five paid-up
members have to sign it before October 13.
Those A
Source: MESA
Oct 3, 2006
Dear Secretary Rice:
We, the Middle East Studies Association of North America’s Committee on Academic Freedom, are writing to express our grave concern and dismay over the Department of State’s denial of a visa for a second time to a world-renowned scholar of Islam, Professor Tareq Ramadan. It is apparent that this decision was made on purely political grounds, in clear violation of the principles of academic freedom and free speech, both of which are critical to the functioning of
Source: Christopher Phelps in the Chronicle of Higher Ed
Oct 3, 2006
[Christopher Phelps, an associate professor of history at the Ohio State University at Mansfield, is the author of Young Sidney Hook: Marxist and Pragmatist, published last year in a new paperback edition by the University of Michigan Press.]
... Now we have knowled
Source: The Australian
Oct 2, 2006
SCOTLAND'S most pro-British historian has performed a remarkable about-face and declared his support for Scottish independence.
Michael Fry, a former Scottish candidate for the Conservative and Unionist Party, says the break-up of Britain is essential if Scotland is to thrive.
His conversion is a symptom of the growing support north of the border for a separate Scotland, with more people now saying they would back independence rather than the status quo in a referendum.
Source: Cambridge University Press email to HNN
Oct 2, 2006
The following are a series of questions and answers with Mark Moyar that will provide further understanding of his revolutionary argument in Triumph Forsaken:
Q: You argue in Triumph Forsaken that much of what is traditionally believed about the Vietnam War is not true. Let’s start with your views on South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem. The traditional thinking is that he was unpopular among the South Vietnamese people and that, after his crackdown on the Buddhist monks, the
Source: Bruce Craig in AHA Perspectives
Oct 1, 2006
Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein has faced a number of challenges since taking the helm of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). None are so daunting, and I'm sure, as frustrating to him as is the proposed fiscal 2007 budget for his agency. According to Hill insiders, unless Congress acts when it reconciles the budget proposals of the House and Senate in conference—and unless the committees throw tradition to the wind and provide an infusion of new money for the
Source: Robert Townsend in AHA Perspectives
Oct 1, 2006
A new study from the Department of Education suggests that students at the poorest schools were less likely to have a fully qualified history teacher at the head of their class.
This study analyzes how many history teachers held one of two qualifications—a degree in the field (or at least a minor in history) and a certification to teach social studies. The report draws on a large survey of more than 51,000 school teachers in the 1999–2000 academic year, using the proportion of stud
Source: Robert Townsend in AHA Perspectives
Oct 1, 2006
After lagging behind other disciplines for almost a decade, history departments finally seem to be gaining ground in the number of undergraduate students earning degrees, even as the number of students earning graduate degrees in the field continues to decline.
The Department of Education reports 29,808 baccalaureate degrees conferred in history during the 2003–04 academic year—a 7.5 percent increase over the year before. This was almost double the growth reported for bachelor’s deg
Source: AHA Perspectives
Oct 1, 2006
If you care about the American Historical Association, and indeed, if you care about the state of the historical profession, we need your help in assessing the health and future direction of the AHA.
On the surface the Association seems quite healthy, with a large membership, superb publications, and almost a decade of balanced budgets. Beneath that surface, however, there is real cause for concern. Over the past decade, membership remained essentially flat and subscriptions to the Ameri
Source: Tariq Ramadan in an op ed in the Wa Po
Oct 1, 2006
For more than two years now, the U.S. government has barred me from entering the United States to pursue an academic career. The reasons have changed over time, and have evolved from defamatory to absurd, but the effect has remained the same: I've been kept out.
First, I was told that I could not enter the country because I had endorsed terrorism and violated the USA Patriot Act. It took a lawsuit for the government eventually to abandon this baseless accusation. Later, I reapplied
Source: Common-Place.org
Oct 1, 2006
Most reviews of my recent biography, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, mention that I am a practicing Mormon. The Sunday New York Times titled its review, "Latter-Day Saint: A practicing Mormon delivers a balanced biography of the church’s founder, Joseph Smith." Perhaps a little oversensitive, I wondered why this was news. Was a Mormon telling the story of the church’s founding prophet with a degree of objectivity something like man bites dog? Did the editor mean that a mind capable
