Recently Published

We Are One: Remembering King’s Struggle for Labor Rights

by Michael Honey

“It is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages.  And I need not remind you this is our plight as a people all over America.” – Martin Luther King in Memphis, March 18, 1968April 4 marks forty-three years since an assassin killed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis.  That date has special meaning this year. “We Are One” events all over the U.S. are fighting for collective bargaining rights, and more broadly, a reversal of

Channelling George Washington: The Forgotten Soldiers of World War I

by Thomas Fleming

“I’ve got a beef.  Isn’t that what you modern slang-slingers call a complaint?”“I used to hear the word a lot in my days in the Navy.  

A Proper Royal Wedding

by Charles Carlton

This Friday perhaps a billion people across the globe will watch the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton.  Why?Well, for one thing, it’ll be a good show.  The British always do

Can't We Afford to Teach Civics Any Longer? Can We Afford Not to?

by Richard Dreyfuss

"An American government exam taken by all high school students in Maryland would be eliminated next year under the proposed state budget, a surprising shift in policy that comes just three years after the test was made a graduation requirement. Gov. Martin O'Malley's proposal cuts $1.9 million from the Maryland State Department of Education budget that would pay for the test and its grading. ... Some educators expressed immediate concern that social studies would get less attention in high schoo

Haley Barbour’s “Nixon to China” Opportunity on Race

by Chris Myers Asch

“Run, Haley, Run!” cry many conservatives searching for a champion in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Channelling George Washington: The Greatest American General

by Thomas Fleming

“Who was the greatest American general?”“That’s a VERY large question. Robert E. Lee?”“A lot of people think so. But I feel his rep

Some Sociological Uses of History

by Herbert J. Gans

For a sociologist, or at least this one, history is of two kinds; one which deliberately studies the past to shed light on the present, and the other which recounts and analyzes the past as an end in itself.  Although the dichotomy is fuzzy and the labels I attach to it are inelegant, I think of the first as present-oriented and the second as past-oriented history. One can subdivide this dichotomy further: among other things, from the historians' and the readers' perspective

Obama in Latin America: So Not Nixon

by Alan McPherson

President Obama is not the only high-profile U.S. official to have kicked around a soccer ball in Latin America, as he did in Brazil a few days ago. When Vice President

What Can Air Power Achieve? From Rolling Thunder to Odyssey Dawn

by Matt Jacobs

With his recent decision to launch Operation Odyssey Dawn, the code name for the airstrikes against Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, President Obama joined a long line of American leaders who have chosen air power as a tool of foreign policy.  But the use of air power without clear objectives has rarely proven an effective choice.  And, unfortunately, the lack of clear objectives is exactly what we are seeing today.  Obama has repeatedly stated that Gadhafi must go, but then he q

Libya's Century as a Target for Air Power

by Brett Holman

Libya now holds an unfortunate record. It is the country which has the longest experience of aerial bombardment. Libya was first bombed in 1911, by Italy; now, in 2011, it is being bombed by its own air force. That makes it just under a century from the first bomb to the latest. It helps that Libya was the very first country to experience aerial bombardment from aeroplanes and from airships. I'm using the word 'country' here in a loose sense, as it was then part of the Ottoman

Remembering the Triangle Fire

by David Lee McMullen

March 25, 2011 marks the one hundredth anniversary of what is perhaps the most infamous industrial disaster in the history of the United States—the fire at

A "No Fly" in the Ointment in Libya

by Daniel Martin Varisco

For days we have been watching the ebb and flow of frustration protests in Libya, echoing but not matching the overthrow of long-time despots in Tunis and Egypt, but seemingly less capable of driving the longest terminator of all into an exilic tent (though probably outside one of Berlusconi’s mansions rather than above a madrasa in Saudi Arabia). A week ago it looked like “rebel” forces might march on Tripoli; such was the rhetoric of liberation on the lips of those who took

Unions Could Turn Wisconsin into a Big Victory

by Julius G. Getman

The union movement faces a crisis. It has failed to organize effectively in the private sector, and public-sector unions, which contain the majority of union members, are under attack across the country.  Wisconsin has led the

Lincoln Catches up with the War

by Steven Bernstein

Author's Note:  The following article is in response to some controversy generated by the ending of my book The Confederacy's Last Northern Offensive: Jubal Early, the Army of the Va

The Challenges of Biography: A Quick Q & A with Joseph Esherick

by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom

The good people at the excellent Browser.com website recently asked me to contribute a

Lincoln and Colonization: Navigating the Evidence

by Phillip W. Magness and Sebastian N. Page

None of Abraham Lincoln’s policies have proven more enigmatic for historians than African American colonization.  He spoke up for it at length from the early 1850s right up to his Second Annual Message

Highlights from the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians in Houston, Texas

by David Austin Walsh

Index Day 1Day 2Day 3Day 4 VideosRelated Links HNN Coverage: Past AHA & OAH Conferences VideosEmilio Zamora: History Wars: The Texas Textbook Controversy

How Japan Learned About "Nuclear Safety"

by Lawrence S. Wittner

Although people can be educated in a variety of ways, experience is a particularly effective teacher.  Consider the Japanese, who today are certainl

The Atomic Age After Fukushima—Time for an Epilogue?

by Frank Uekoetter

It is a common sport today to label recent events as historic turning points.  Rarely did we see this impulse as speedily at work as during the last weekend.

The Mythic Lure of the “No-Fly Zone”

by Ira Chernus

As Libyan rebels continue their struggle against the Qaddafi regime, the drumbeat here in the U.S. grows louder every day—not for war, or at least not for a good old-fashioned ground war, but for its modern-day equ