Recently Published

Chavez: The Story of a Bully Boy

by Michael Rowan

Hugo Chavez has made a career of being rejected by authorities who then underestimated his ability to take sweet revenge. Chavez was rejected by his family, the military, the political elites of Venezuela and finally U.S. President George W. Bush, but survived to punish every one of them. Here is the sad story of the making of a bully boy.Chavez experienced the bitterness of rejection early in life. Born in a dirt-poor village to a large family, his childish wild behavior was handled by locking him in a dark closet for days on end. His parents gave him to his grandmother to bring up -- he calls her Mama to this day. As a teenager he would cross the street to avoid even eye contact with his real mother.While both his parents were teachers, at school Hugo was a dismal failure. He failed science in high school; he failed the test for university entrance; he faked his way into the military academy as a baseball player; and he finished last in his military class, blaming it on his teachers.

On Hearing Obama Speak Paine’s Words

by Harvey J. Kaye

Knowing of my lifelong admiration and affection for the Revolutionary patriot and pamphleteer Thomas Paine, and my recent efforts to redeem his life and labor

Howard Zinn: The Historian as Don Quixote

by Larry DeWitt

Howard Zinn has a new book out, which I accidentally stumbled across recently in my local Barnes and Noble. Zinn’s latest book is a cartoon version of history—literally this time. The new book is a graphic adaptation of a chapter from his well-known classic, A People’s History of the United States.  The title of the newest effort is A People’s History of American Empire, as that is the aspect of American history of which Zinn most passionately disapp

Inauguration 2009: Obama's Break with Tradition

by Elvin T. Lim

President Barack Obama has been accused of being a celebrity and a poet, but we now know that his ambitions for our country go beyon

At Last Bush's Restrictions on Presidential Records Are Lifted

by Anna K. Nelson

For more than seven years, the research community has worked to defeat Executive Order (E.O.) 13233 which President George W. Bush imposed a year after he took office. Then, with the stroke of a pen, President Obama nullified that E.O. on the first day of his presidency. The Bush E.O. basically over turned some of the

Did Nixon Commit Treason in 1968? What The New LBJ Tapes Reveal.

by Robert "KC" Johnson

In the end, no one was held accountable for actions that Johnson had labeled “treason.”

Farewell to Campaign Finance Reform--Good Riddance!

by Thomas Fleming

I am astonished that in the aftermath of the epochal presidential election of 2008, almost no one in the media has mentioned the second most important reason for calling the contest historic. Just behind the stunning and justly celebrated choice of our first African-American president is the  total destruction of the worst hypocrisy concocted by American politicians in their storied struggles for power, campaign finance reform. Is it because the man who delivered the coup de grace, P

What Would King Tell Obama?

by Michael Honey

What would Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we celebrate on January ninetenth, say to Barack Obama, inaugurated as President of the United States on Janua

How Did Russia Rebuild Itself? Sorry, But You're Wrong.

by Stephen Kotkin

Which large country’s global integration over the past two decades has radically transformed the world economy and geopolitics?  Which lar

Muddling the Holocaust in Lithuania

by Steven F. Lawson

As Peter Novick argues in The Holocaust in American Life (1999), in the late 1940s Americans, especially Jews, hesitated to discuss the Holocaust openly.  The Nuremburg Trials and the presentation of film footage of Nazi atrocities in the concentration camps had appropriately shocked citizens in the U.S. and allied countries. The conversion of postwar Germany into an ally against the Soviet Union as the Cold War began did not change the horror of the extermination of six million Jewi

The Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations: A Sad Lesson from American History

by Robert Justin Goldstein

In his 1952 book The Loyalty of Free Men, Alan Barth, a Washington Post editorial writer, described the so-called “At

Could Obama's Internationalism Cost Him Support at Home?

by Tim Roberts

President-elect Barack Obama will take office during the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.  Pundits have noted many similarities between the two presidents.   Obama has cited Lincoln as his leadership example, invoking Lincoln’s words, “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” to emphasize his commitment to bridge our racial division.  But Lincoln’s most important impact on Obama will be his determination to make the United States a gl

Why Do Presidential Inaugurals Often Sound So Much Alike?

by HNN Staff

What we have, from the earliest years of the republic, is a collection of beliefs, symbols and rituals with respect to sacred things and institutionalized in a collectivity ... American civil religion has its own prophets and its own martyrs, its own sacred events and sacred places, its own solemn rituals and symbols. It is concerned that America be a society as perfectly in accord with the will of God as men can make it, and a light to all the nations.-

A School Abolishes the Humanities--And Our Culture Suffers

by Amy Solowiej

Webster's defines culture as äcquaintance with and a taste in fine arts, humanities...."It is also enlightenment and excellence of taste aquired by intellectual and aesthetic TRAINING." But the English-speaking peoples live in an age of affluence and ease. Even our "work" s tends to be easy.We've been numbed to believe everything should come easy--especially our culture. (Hence the all too common expression "I just want the peice of paper.") The Bache

Is It Time for a Green New Deal?

by Neil M. Maher

Tuesday, January 20th, marks the beginning of Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office.  On that day the new President will begin tacklin

Le Monde Diplomatique Discovers Ayn Rand

by Judith Apter Klinghoffer

Is This the Black Activist Everybody Forgot?

by Jeffrey B. Perry

There is a growing interest in Hubert Harrison, the race- and class-conscious “intellectual giant” of the World War I era.

Obama Can Learn From Carter, too

by John R. Bawen

Jimmy Carter was the last president to ask the nation for collective sacrifice. Barack Obama ought to do the same. How should he do so? He should ask Congress to approve an economic stimulus plan and then specifically outline the sacrifices Americans will have to make over the next four years to achieve the national goals he sets for them. These goals include a strengthened military, universal health care coverage, energy independence and a balanced budget. The president-ele

The Power of Oratory: Why Churchill is Still Relevant

by Carlo D’Este

On May 10, 1940 Winston Churchill became prime minister of Britain on what one Member of Parliament aptly described as “perhaps the darkest day

A Pardon for Libby?

by Jeffrey Crouch

Will he or won't he?