Pandemic Exposes Vulnerabilities of Workers on Farms
By Verónica Martínez-Matsuda
The Latest 
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Sick Leave Provisions in the COVID Relief Bill Were Historic. That's the Problem.
Vicki Shabo
It is well past time for lawmakers to provide permanent paid sick days protections, so that no one is forced to work sick, risk their paycheck or risk their job.
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US v. Sineneng-Smith Echoes the Fugitive Slave Act
Alan J. Singer
A Supreme Court decision in United States v. Sineneng-Smith that broadens the authority of the federal government to suppress the rights of advocates for undocumented immigrants could divide the nation irreparably.
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The Atomic Bomb, War Room Intrigue and Emperor Hirohito's Decision to Surrender
David Dean Barrett
The record of the Imperial Conferences makes clear two salient facts: that Emperor Hirohito ended the war, and he ended it because of the atomic bomb.
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Students of History, Your Professors have Prepared You for such a Time as This!
John Fea
The study of history offers an approach to the world necessary for the creation of good citizens in a democratic society.
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Laughter in an Age of Pandemics
Michael A. Genovese
We are all struggling, and we all need the distractions that only absurdity can provide. So laugh now and then; see the silly, the absurd and the comic in life.
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What About the Waitresses?
Alison Owings
I wonder if – when – this viral horror is over, customers will have a new appreciation for the women, and men, who serve.
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What the "Primacy" Debate in Foreign Policy Gets Wrong
Ken Weisbrode
Yes, let’s end “endless wars” and enhance peaceable diplomacy around the world. But let us not at the same time renounce by redefinition America’s international responsibilities and its capacity for wise, moral leadership.
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New Deal or Nazism? Historical Comparisons to Trump's Performance as a Leader in Crisis
Walter G. Moss
Comparing the first 100 days in power of Franklin Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler offers a sobering reminder of the consequences of decisions pursued by leaders in crisis.
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Historian William McNeill Warned in 1976 that a Mutated Flu Virus Could Cause a Pandemic
James Thornton Harris
McNeil’s major achievement was to incorporate developments in microbiology, anthropology and archeology and synthesize them in a popular world history that identified disease as a primary shaper of world history.
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The Coronavirus Pandemic, Like Other Global Catastrophes, Reveals the Limitations of Nationalism
Lawrence Wittner
The coronavirus disaster, like the other current catastrophes ravaging the planet, might finally convince people around the globe that transcending nationalism is central to survival.
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Blog
The Polarized, Partisan Pandemic
Steve Hochstadt
It’s worth looking beyond Trump to the political struggles across the country to save lives and win votes.
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Roundup Top Ten for April 3, 2020
The week's top ten op-eds by historians from around the web.
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HNN Introduces Classroom Activity Kits
Chelsea Connolly and Kyla Sommers
Combining the fields of journalism and history, these activity kits provide educators with complete downloadable lesson plans.
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Getting Medieval on COVID? The Risks of Periodizing Public Health
G. Geltner
Pundits have described fighting the pandemic in terms of “medieval” or “modern” approaches. A historian of late medieval public health explains that dichotomy is a false one, and dangerous as well.
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Filmmaking, Reality and Fact: How Documentaries Shape Americans' Ideas of Truth
Jon Wilkman
A sizable percentage of Americans get their sense of history through television documentaries. The history of nonfiction filmmaking offers crucial insight on how we got to, and how we might escape, a "post-truth" world.
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"Rogue" Manufacturing in China: Past and Present
Eugenia Lean
As China’s economic power grows, global intellectual property might end up looking more and more like the Chinese tradition of shanzhai in the future.
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DC Comics and the American Dilemma of Race
Patrick L. Hamilton and Allan W. Austin
Superhero popular culture has always been embedded within American racial attitudes, reflecting and even contributing to them in ways that reveal goodwill is not sufficient, in and of itself, to fix our problems.
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An Interview with "Most Wanted" Author Sarah Jane Marsh
Chelsea Connolly
"Although I use individuals such as Adams, Hancock, and Paine as a vehicle for the story, I want readers to understand the American Revolution was ultimately a mass movement of the people."
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A Word to My Fellow Progressives: Lessons of the 2020 Democratic Primary
Andrew Meyer
This year feels to many progressives like a lost opportunity. With Joseph Biden seemingly certain to win the Democratic nomiatuion, what can progressives learn and apply to the future from the experience of 2020?
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Blog
The Ruthless Litigant in Chief: James Zirin Paints a Portrait of Trump Through 3,500 Lawsuits
Robin Lindley
American presidents before Donald Trump had some record of public achievement in politics, government or the military before they were elected. Donald Trump brought his astounding history of involv...
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Roundup Top Ten for March 27, 2020
The top ten op eds by historians published around the web.
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A New Lease on Life for the "Jewish Nose" Lie
Moshe Phillips
Anti-Semitic humor helps bigotry infiltrate mainstream culture and discourse.
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Can We Build On Yesterday, Salvage Today—And Save Tomorrow?
Vaughn Davis Bornet
A historian and veteran in his 102nd year reflects on the current crisis. It's like nothing else, but we can learn from the past.
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Our Stories Will Carry Us to the Future. Can They Save Us Now?
David Farrier
To avert a climate disaster, science is essential, but we also need stories. We know ourselves first and foremost in the tales we tell.
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Why Holocaust Fiction?
Bernice Lerner
Had they had a choice, I believe Hitler’s victims would have wanted nothing about the mortal crimes against them falsified.
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Plots Against America?: Jim Crow was Homegrown Fascism
Guy Lancaster
HBO’s prestige adaptation of Philip Roth’s 2004 novel The Plot Against America makes it worthwhile to examine whether fascism is really so alien to the United States as many wish to believe.
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The Three Daring Women Who Traversed the Himalayas
Kayte Nunn
Antonia Deacock, Anne Davies, Eve Sims set off overland from England to Tibet in 1958, a 16,000 mile journey to aim climb one of the Himalayas’ unexplored high peaks.
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As We Zoom into Online Learning….
Norman J.W. Goda
To learn effectively, we all need to be, once again, in the same room. Let’s hope it is soon.
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Use What You Know: Online Teaching Tools
Kevin Gannon
Many historians have already been doing this kind of teaching online, so there might not be the need for you to re-discover fire.
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The Cultural Constants of Contagion
Ed Simon
Plague is, in some ways, a type of cultural absolute zero, a shared experience of extremity that does seem to offer certain perennial themes that approach universality.
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Bancroft Prize Goes to Books on Emancipation and Urban Renewal
The scholars Joseph P. Reidy and Lizabeth Cohen have won the prize, one of the most prestigious honors in the field of American history.
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UPDATED 4/6: What Historians Are Saying About COVID-19 and Trump's Response
HNN Staff
Their tweets, retweets, and comments on social media.
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Updated 4/5: Historians Discuss the Media's Coverage of COVID-19
Journalism is the first draft of history. Historians wield the red pen.
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Blog
An Interview with Mary V. Thompson on the Lives of the Enslaved Residents of Mount Vernon
Robin Lindley
Mary V. Thompson brings to life a complicated history of enslaved people and their legendary owner.
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When the Western Wall Was A Battleground For Jewish Rights
Moshe Phillips
The book explains how Segal and the others who followed in his footsteps transformed the Western Wall from a site of wailing to one of national pride.
News
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