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Lawyers Should Punish the Torture Lawyers

by Harold H. Bruff

Lawyers for the Bush administration gave their clients very bad advice on a wide range of topics, including domestic surveillance, the detention and trial of terror

Is Economic Growth a Delusion?

by Steven Stoll

Unemployment reached 8.5 percent in March of this year, but add in the once full-time, now part-time laborers, it may be as high as 15 percent. Yet my

Is the GOP Washed Up? Hardly.

by David L. Stebenne

As scholars and politicos debate the Republican party’s future, everyone involved ought to keep in mind that history does offer some useful lessons. The closest historical analogy to the GOP’s present dilemma was the party’s experience in the 1930’s and ‘40’s, when the Republicans as a national party also had real trouble appealing to the broad middle of the electorate at a time when moderation was increasing

Dear President Obama: Please Don't Honor the Arlington Confederate Monument

by Edward Sebesta and James Loewen

May 18, 2009 President Barack H. Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500Dear President Obama: Since the administration of Woodrow Wilson, presidents have sent annually a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument. Prior to the administration of George H. W. Bush, this was done on or near the birthday of Jefferson Davis.  Starting with George H.W. Bush, it has been done on Memorial Day. We a

In Memory of David Herbert Donald (1920-2009)

by Gil Troy

Related Links HNN Doyen: David Herbert Donald HNN Coverage of the Death of David Donald One of the first real history books I ever bought was W

Tortured Debate: Why the Media Should Stop Referring to the Inquisition

by Liam Brockey

As a troupe of wise men once said, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Regrettably, that is no longer the case. The recent flood tide of commentary about the so-called Torture Memos has brough

Nixonland in Paperback: An Interview with Rick Perlstein

by HNN Staff

Related Links Rick Perlstein on Obama (video interview)

How Ideological Funding is Harming Israel and Jewish Studies in the United States

by Jeremiah Haber

Jewish Studies, and now also Israel Studies, did not arise on college campuses because the American academy recognized the importance of these areas. On the contrary, it was Jewish philanthropy that endowed chairs and centers of Jewish studies beginning in the 1970s and centers of Israel Studies beginning in the 1990s and accelerating in the first decade of the current century. Although the funding often came from wealthy individuals, the universities made it clear to the donors that faculty

Evangelicalism—the End of an Era?

by Steven P. Miller

Historians love eras—if only because they offer an easy way to critique those other historians who dare think in terms of “the age of . . . . ”  Recent developments might be giving

How Did We Get the Term D-Day?

by Jonathan Gawne

Every June the press carries stories about the invasion of Normandy in 1944. One of the most common questions raised is “what does the term D-Day mean and where does it come from?” The answer to what it means is readily known. They are used for the day and hour on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. However, the question of where the U.S. Army got the term has remained a mystery. The First World War saw the start of massive operations involving the coordination of hundred

Pugetopolis -- A Mossback Takes on Growth Addicts, Weather Wimps, and the Myth of Seattle Nice: An interview with Knute Berger

by Robin Lindley

In the late nineteenth century, newcomers to the Northwest derided the early settlers as “mossbacks” who were stuck in the past, in the w

"Big Bang": Changing the National Approach to the Treatment of Detainees (June 2005)

by Philip Zelikow and Gordon England

HNN Editor: Last week in testimony before a Senate subcommittee Philip Zelikow provided fascinating insights into the grueling bureaucratic infighting that delayed reform of the Bush administration's detainee policies. You can read his testimony here. Zelikow testified that by the summer of 2005 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was convinced"the raging controversy over 'Abu Ghraib' or 'Guantanam

Tortured Reasoning and Tortured Results

by William Loren Katz

Each day the evidence piles up - highlighted by the unconvincing rants of Dick Cheney. Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, said,"the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 -- well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion -- its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida." Journalist Paul Krugman said of the

American Torture: No Knowledge of History, No Sense of Tragedy

by William J. Astore

Recently in the New York Times, Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti showed that the Bush Administration, the CIA, and the Senate and House Intelligence Committees failed to ask for any historical context before approving so-called “harsh interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding, in 2002.  No one apparently knew, or wanted to know, that the U.S. had defined waterboarding as torture and prose

Harry S Truman at 125

by Frederick G. Slabach and Michael R. Gardner

Soon after Harry S Truman became President, he invited his mother, Martha, for a long visit at the White House.  When she arrived, Truman suggested she stay in the Lincoln Bedroom.  As Clark Clifford recounts in Counsel to the President, Martha turned

The Swine Flu and Historic Memory

by Heather Munro Prescott

Last month I attended the annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine, an organization "devoted to the study of all aspects of the history of the

Can a Comic Book About MLK Change the Middle East (At Least a Little)?

by Noah Mendel

The American Islamic Congress (AIC), a multi-national civil rights organization, announced in March that it had published an Arabic translation of an old comic book celebrating the life and ideas of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. First published in 1956, amidst the Civil Rights movement, “The Montgomery Story” centers around the events of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Spearheaded by Dr. King and famed-activist Rosa Parks, the bus boycott successfully put an end to segregati

Reagan Was His Own Man

by James Mann

Absolutely without guile. This is the interpretation of Reagan that has endured, both with conservatives who yearn to see him as a man of uncomplicated

Why Mary Is the Mother We Celebrate the Rest of the Year

by Miri Rubin

Ten years ago I began an historical study of the figure of the Virgin Mary. I am a historian of the Middle Ages, and so I expected my work to include the study of religious imagery and prayer, hymns and Marian shr

Reporter's Notebook: Highlights from the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association

by Rick Shenkman

IndexAddendum Eric Foner: Why He Became a Historian (video)Lynn Hunt: Why She Became a Historian (video)James McPherson: Why He Became a Historian (video) Mahmood Mamdani: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim (video)Com