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Making the Past Come Alive ... Through Cable News from 1861

by William Rabkin

A casual study of history teaches us one indisputable fact:We’re much smarter than all those guys who lived in the past.Want proof?  Read a couple of chapters of any decent history book and you’ll instantly have a clear understanding not only of what happened, but why.  You’ll see the cause behind every effect, the pattern binding together incidents that once seemed random.They couldn’t do that back then, could they?

Will Demilitarization Work in the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict? Probably Not

by Jonathan Dresner

President Obama's recent call for a new round of negotiation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict got a great deal of attention for his explicit mention of the 1967 borders as a starting point for land exchanges towards definitive borders.  This has been both the starting point and a sticking point for these negotiations for at least twenty years.  But his call for a demilitarized Palestinian state has a longer history:  demilitarization has been a component of political settlements to armed conflicts for at least a century, and has a decidedly mixed record.  For a situation like the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, demilitarization alone will not work, and will only be a short-term situation.

"Victory" Is the Verbal Equivalent of a Yeti

by Tom Engelhardt

Now that Washington has at least six wars cooking (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and more generally, the global war on terror), Americans find themselves in a new world of war.  If, however, you haven't joined the all-volunteer military, any of our seventeen intelligence outfits, the Pentagon, the weapons companies and hire-a-gun corporations associated with it, or some other part of the National Security C

Wrong "Correct" Answers: The Scourge of the NAEP

by Paul Burke

Related LinksNAEP History Exam Results at a GlanceThe National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has three big flaws in measuring history knowledge.  First, students get neither a grade nor any result from the test, so student effort is entirely voluntary.  Second, NAEP seeks proficiency on so many topics it encourages shallowness, not depth.  Third, NAEP marks wrong many of the correct answers.

Rick Perry's War on Higher Ed in Texas

by John Willingham

In April of this year, Paul Burka, one of the best and most knowledgeable writers about Texas, wrote in his regular column for Texas Monthly magazine that “Rick Perry is waging a quiet war against our current system of higher education, which makes him a lot like some previous governors. He may win, but we’ll lose.”

Retired CIA Official Alleges Bush White House Used Agency to "Get" Me—Congress Needs to Investigate

by Juan Cole

Eminent National Security correspondent at the New York Times James Risen has been told by a retired former official of the Central Intelligence Agency that the Bush White House repeatedly aske

The Diversity of College Diversity

by John R. Thelin

The New York Times ran a story on June 14 about diversity in admissions to selective colleges, focusing on students “gaming” the system when some applicants reported their racial and ethnic background.  Having a parent who is African-Ameri

Let the Teachers Teach

by Jim Cullen

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Let He Who Knows Who Won the Korean War Cast the First Stone

by James Grossman

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How Can We Ever Hope to Govern Ourselves If We Know Nothing of Our Past?

by Rick Shenkman

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Can Educators Even Answer These Lame Questions?

by Sam Wineburg

Related LinksNAEP History Exam Results at a Glance“Ignorance of U.S. History Shown” was the New York Times headline.  Less than a quarter of American students were able to name two contributions to U.S. history by Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson.A report about last week’s NAEP findings?  Try again.What about this?  “Test Shows Knowledge of American History Limited.”

We Need a STEM-Like Initative for History

by Linda K. Salvucci

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Give Teachers Flexibility

by Jim Cullen

As a classroom teacher, I find the NEAP survey results, like most education reports, engender a sense of epistemological modesty.  There are so many factors—parental role, economic and racial disparities, government mandates like special needs—that get woven into data, and can only be partially controlled.

Playing Chicken with the Economy

by Robert Brent Toplin

Republicans say they will not raise the debt ceiling if Democrats do not accept their demands for huge spending cuts.  Will they go all the way in this confrontation, even to the point of triggering the first default in the U.S. government’s history?

The Westboro Baptist Church vs. ... The Ku Klux Klan?

by Kelly J. Baker

On Memorial Day, the holiday for remembering “the nation’s war dead,” the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) of Kansas led a three-person protest at Arlington Cemetery in Virginia.  In and of itself, the protest is not newsworthy.

How the Military and the Civilian Are Blurring in Washington

by William J. Astore

I have a fairy tale for you.  Once upon a time, a representative democracy was established with a constitution that distilled the wisdom of the ages.  Its foundational principles included civilian control of the military and a system of checks and balances that encouraged vigorous public debate as a basis for effective policy-making. 

The Rise and Fall of the American Jewish Establishment

by Jack Ross

It has now been a year since the publication of the widely discussed essay in the

Hate Over the Very Long Term: An Unexpected Link Between Medieval Anti-Semitism and the Nazis

by Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth

When the Black Death struck in Europe in 1348-50, between thirty and seventy percent of the population died.  There were no precedents within living memory.  Jews were accused of poisoning wells across the continent, often confessing after being tortured.  A wave of pogroms occurred throughout Northern Europe.  Switzerland, northern France, Germany, and the Low Countries saw attacks.  In Strasbourg, the local city council opposed persecuting the Jews, but, under massive pressure by the guilds and the populace at large, it was subsequently deposed.

Where Have All the Jobs Gone?

by Judith Stein

In May, the unemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent.  The economy added only 54,000 jobs, much fewer than the 300,000 that the economy requires each month to make a dent in that rate.  Even the better April figure (222,000 new jobs) did not match what was necessary.

Fukushima: Three Months Later

by Frank Uekoetter