Recently Published

Will The Occupy Movement Fade Now That Most of the Occupations Have Been Cleared?

by Mark Naison

The tent cities have been bulldozed and the parks have been cleared.  Big-city mayors see clean spaces, washed and sanitized, and hope that the Occupations were a bad dream.  Obama supporters hope that the three months of protest represented a brief detour in a progressive movement that will ultimately come to its senses and concentrate on re-electing the president and campaigning for Democratic candidates for Congress, realizing—with the help of a collection of bizarre and frighteningly ill-informed Republican presidential aspirants—that the most important initiatives to achieve a more just society take place at the polls, not in the streets.

Penn State and Violence Against Men

by Jim Loewen

The Penn State scandal brought forth a thoughtful commentary by Daniel Mendelsohn, Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities at Bard College.  Mendelsohn begins his recent New York Times op-ed, “What if it had been a 10-year-old girl in the Penn State locker room that Friday night in 2002?”He concludes that then Mike McQueary, the graduate assistant to the football team, would surely have intervened or at least called the police.  "But the victim in this case was a boy," Mendelsohn notes.  He goes on to speculate that the university, too, would have taken the crime more seriously, had the victim been female.Even though we cannot know for sure without at least interviewing McQueary and Joe Paterno, Graham Spanier, and other Penn State officials, surely Mendelsohn is right.  As he puts it,Does anyone believe that if a burly graduate student had walked in on a 58-year-old man raping a naked little girl in the shower, he would have left without calling the police and without trying to rescue the girl?

The Sad Lives and Demise of Stalin's Sons

by Rupert Colley

Last week we learnt of the death of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s only daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva.  She died in Wisconsin on November 22 at the age of 85.But Stalin, who died in March 1953, also had two sons, one from each of his wives.  The eldest, Yakov, the child of Stalin’s first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, was born in 1907 and died in a German concentration camp in 1943.  Ekaterina was, along with Stalin’s mother, his great love.  They married in 1906 and had been man and wife only 16 months when she died of typhus, aged 22, while her son was still only nine months old.  Her death greatly affected the future dictator—comrades, worried for his sanity, took away his revolver for fear he might put the gun to his temple.  At her funeral, a grief-stricken Stalin told a friend, ‘This creature softened my heart of stone.  She died and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity.”Yakov Dzhugashvili

A 1978 Critique of Gaddis on Kennan

by Michael H. Hunt

The names of George Frost Kennan and John Lewis Gaddis have become closely intertwined in the minds of diplomatic historians.  Kennan figured prominently in Gaddis’ first book, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947 (1972).  He was the model realist, preoccupied with defining the national interest, attentive to the ends of policy and the means available, and possessed of a keen understanding of great power politics.  Against him was arrayed the isolationist sentiment, the political opportunism, and the misplaced idealism that afflicted the Soviet policy of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations.  When Foreign Affairs, the influential establishment outlet sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, wanted to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Kennan’s famous 1947 “X” article in that journal, the editor turned to Gaddis. And celebrate he did (in “Containment: A Reassessment” in the July 1977 issue).  Kennan was once more the wise statesman who had wanted to make containment economic and political rather than military.  Gaddis’ favorable reading of the record and his resolute stand against Kennan critics appear to have endeared him to Kennan.

Why Does the 99 Percent Let Athletes, Executives, and Movie Stars Get Away with Huge Salaries?

by Walter G. Moss

Occupy Wall Street has popularized talk about America's 99 percent versus the richest 1 percent.  A study by the Congressional Budget Office in October 2011 detailed the growing income gap between 1979 and 2007.  It noted that the fast-escalating earnings of the elite in sports, entertainment, and the corporate world had contributed to this increasing gap.  In 1985, Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death claimed that TV was turning public life into entertainment.  Twenty years later, in an introduction to a new edition, his son Andrew argued that all the new media since then had just accentuated the trend.

Fairy Tale History at New York’s (un)Historical Society

by Alan Singer

The New-York Historical Society and the Gilder Lehrman Institute are partnering to rewrite and present to the public a revised history of slavery in the Americas and the struggle to end it.  Unfortunately, their version, at least as it is presented in the Society’s new exhibit, “Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn,” is rife with platitudes, inaccuracies, and fairy tales.

Revisiting a Massacre in Lebanon's Civil War—Were Lebanese Christians Responsible?

by Franck Salameh

This past September marked the twenty-ninth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanon’s president-elect Bashir Gemayel.  Like its most recent clone, the 2005 murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, memories of the 1982 crime continue to haunt many Lebanese, some of whom are still persuaded its perpetrators to have been Syrian operatives bent on scuttling end-of-conflict prospects for Lebanon.  Today, as Syria’s “Alawite era” teeters on the edge of its twilight, and as the international community prepares to indict it for ongoing crimes against its own people, the regime’s shady gruesome past is coming back to assail its tattered present days. 

A Modest Proposal for Occupy Wall Street: Take Our Children, Please!

by Steve Fraser

In 1729, when Ireland had fallen into a state of utter destitution at the hands of its British landlords, Jonathan Swift published a famous essay, “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being A Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public.” His idea was simple: the starving Irish should sell their own children to the rich as food. His inspiration, as it happened, came from across the Atlantic.  As he explained, “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young, healthy child well nourished is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragoust.”

The Militarization of American Police Has Long Historical Roots

by Jeremy Kuzmarov

The images of militarized police units organized in platoon formation pepper spraying and beating peaceful demonstrators at UC Davis and at the Occupy encampments across the country have been disturbing to witness, though they provide a potent symbol of the times.  While staffed with people from working-class backgrounds, the police in American society have long served as “protectors of privilege,” as Frank Donner put it in a 1990 book, upholding the power of the wealthy 1% by frequently crushing labor protest, spying on and harassing civil rights and antiwar activists, and enforcing the War on Drugs primarily in ghetto communities.

Anti-Liberal Netanyahu Slams Arab Spring as Anti-Liberal

by Juan Cole

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said [on Thursday] that he had been right to oppose the forced resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last February and categorized the uprisings in the Arab world as “anti-Western, anti-liberal, anti-Israeli and anti-democratic wave.”  He gave the “uncertainty” in the region as yet another excuse for the Likud Party to continue to steal and squat on ever greater portions of the Palestinian West Bank.Netanyahu’s outburst is of course completely illogical, and also deeply dishonest.  When the Arabs were ruled by dictatorships then that was the reason for which Israel could or should steal Palestinian land and keep the Palestinians stateless and devoid of rights.  If they have anti-authoritarian grassroots movements demanding parliaments, now that is the reason for the same policies.

The Growing Gap Between Civilians and the Military Could Have Serious Consequences

by Mary L. Dudziak

"A smaller share of Americans currently serve in the U.S. Armed Forces than at any time since the peace-time era between World Wars I and II," according to a new report from the Pew Research Center (hat tip New York Times).During the past decade, as the military has been engaged in the longest period of sustained conflict in the nation’s history, just one-half of one percent of American adults has served on active duty at any given time.1 As the size of the military shrinks, the connections between military personnel and the broader civilian population appear to be growing more distant.  

Arabist Snobs

by Daniel Pipes

Is knowledge of Arabic necessary to write about Arabs or make policy toward them?  Yes, sniff some of those who have learned the language, known as Arabists.The Arabic language went to Antony Sullivan's head.Antony T. Sullivan, for example, pulls rank in the journal Historically Speaking.  Critiquing an article, "The Military Roots of Islam," by two non-Arabists, George Nafziger and Mark Walton, he writes: "As one who believes that foreign language competence and accurate rendition of foreign words and concepts into English are important,"—note Sullivan's puffed-up sense of self—"I must confess to considerable disappointment in the article."  And what devastating mistake did those authors make to undermine their thesis?  Did they misunderstand jihad (Islamic holy war)?  No, something much worse:

Occupy the American Historical Association: Demand a WPA Federal Writers' Project

by Jesse Lemisch

As part of his program to deal with America’s economic catastrophe, economist Robert Reich has proposed a revival of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps.  Reich is hardly alone in putting forth such notions—I advocated a new WPA Federal Writers’ Project ("History is Worth Fighting for, But Where is the AHA?")—and it is so obvious an idea that it can hardly be called ingenious.  But the American Historical Association has responded to such ideas with lectures urging us to get real:  AHA President Anthony T.

Is a Nuclear War with China Possible?

by Lawrence S. Wittner

While nuclear weapons exist, there remains a danger that they will be used.  After all, for centuries national conflicts have led to wars, with nations employing their deadliest weapons.  The current deterioration of U.S. relations with China might end up providing us with yet another example of this phenomenon.The gathering tension between the United States and China is clear enough.  Disturbed by China’s growing economic and military strength, the U.S. government recently challenged China’s claims in the South China Sea, increased the U.S. military presence in Australia, and deepened U.S. military ties with other nations in the Pacific region.  According to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the United States was “asserting our own position as a Pacific power.”But need this lead to nuclear war?

We Don't Need a "Pacific" President—We Need an American One

by Kenneth Weisbrode

“Geopolitics” is a strange word.  In fusing geography with politics, it flips the academic term—political geography—on its head.  It defines the political manipulation of territory more than the influence of political factors upon geography per se.  Its import and orientation have accordingly been more normative and ideological than empirical.Among the more notable founders of modern geopolitics were Germans—Friedrich Ratzel, Karl Haushofer—and a few of their ideas—namely, Lebensraum, or living space—were once sought eagerly and eastwardly by Nazis.  For this reason geopolitics has had a checkered reputation.  Although some concepts are well known—Russia with its “Near Abroad”; Pakistan and “Strategic Depth”—geopolitics tends to be a favorite of armchair (and some real) generals and journalists; many geographers do not regard it seriously.

The Thanksgiving Myth

by Nicolaas Vergunst

I was never keen on blind dates.  All the anticipation, uncertainty and potential disappointment seemed too stressful.  So I avoided such scenarios.  Now I know we can’t avoid these in history.Like blind dates, first encounters can be strenuous and tend to be remembered differently by both parties.  In a worst-case scenario, what may have seemed a romantic conquest for one could have been date rape to another.Historically, first encounters are also strenuous affairs.  These usually occur on the beach or beside a riverbank—rather than in a rosy-colored tavern—and their memory differs too, such as 1492 or 1498 when Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama wooed the Indians on both sides of the world.  It’s no wonder then, that Thanksgiving is such a contested event today.Thanksgiving Day

Studying Crowds is out of Fashion for Historians—Here's Why We Should

by Peter N. Stearns

Recent and current events in the ongoing Arab Spring and now the Occupy movement should remind us of the complex role of crowds in history.  Lots of scholars are looking at the ongoing developments, of course, but I think mainly in terms of social justice goals rather than crowd dynamics.  Both are important, but we don’t want to forget about the crowd aspect.Those of us social historians of a certain age cut our eye teeth on crowds, with the work of George Rudé, Eric Hobsbawm, and Charles Tilly.  In the 1960s, the relevance of this aspect of social history to the world around us seemed obvious and fascinating.  We learned about the rationality of crowds, the careful selection of targets, and how crowd action could turn into larger social and political change.Then crowds went out of fashion, and I actually wonder how many historians have recently given any thought to crowds or, more important, taught about them. It’s certainly time for a revival.

Can History Be Used in Risk Analysis?

by Yoav J. Tenembaum

Can history be a viable tool in enhancing political risk analysis?This question has become particularly pertinent in the light of the latest economic crises in the euro-zone.Past experience is an instinctual learning process in human beings.  A child who touches a hot stove once, for example, will most probably be careful at touching it again.The variables in this example, of course, are rather different than those that apply to political risk analysis.Recognizing a hot stove is much simpler than identifying identical phenomena in the realm of political and economic decision-making.  The fact that an apparently similar event occurred in the past does not necessarily mean that the event being studied in the present is indeed similar, let alone identical.In both cases, memory and perception play an important role.  In the first, though, the variable being assessed is monolithic in cause and effect:  a hot stove is a hot stove.  If touched by a human being it will cause the same effect wherever and whenever it happens.In the case of political risk analysis, the variables being analyzed are usually more complex and varied in cause and effect as to allow a scientific formula to the effect that if A emerges then B is bound to happen.

The European Debt Crisis is a Problem of Political Will

by Iwan Morgan

Back in the summer, as U.S. politicians seemed on the verge of failing to agree a debt limit extension to avoid default on America's obligations, Europeans looked on in scornful amazement at an apparent failure of leadership.  Now the shoe is very much on the other foot.  Speaking on November 16, President Barack Obama accused the Eurozone of suffering from "a problem of political will" that put the future of the single currency at risk.  America's leaders succeeded in averting a default crisis when common sense finally prevailed (though the Democrats paid a higher political price for reason than the Republicans).  Whether Europe's leaders can pull off their own great escape is much more open to doubt, because in their case their sovereign debt problem is much graver than America's debt limitation problem and the solution to it is far less readily apparent.

Why Didn't Mike McQueary Stop Jerry Sandusky? Why Didn't Anyone Help Kitty Genovese?

by Joseph De May

Apart from Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, Mike McQueary, and the still unnamed victims, the person most often mentioned in connection with the Penn State sex abuse scandal is a woman who has been dead for almost forty-eight years.  If you don’t recognize her name, you’ve likely heard her story or some version of it.28-year-old Kitty Genovese was murdered in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York, on March 13, 1964.  As with Anne Frank, the story of Kitty’s death transformed her from an unknown to one of the most enduring of public figures.  That transformation began with the opening paragraph of a front page story from the March 27, 1964 New York Times.For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.  Twice their chatter and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off.  Each time he returned, sought her out, and stabbed her again.  Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead.