Historians/History

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• 11/22/2020
  

  A Surprise Encounter with Zora Neale Hurston

  by Fred Zilian

  The genius of Zora Neale Hurston has fascinated recent scholars, but one reader found traces of her legacy in an unexpected place. 

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• 11/22/2020
  

  Take a Lesson from the Persistence of the Founder of Modern Thanksgiving

  by William Lambers

  Sarah Josepha Hale pushed Abraham Lincoln to declare a national Thanksgiving holiday as a day to seek healing and unity. Fighting to end hunger is a way to recommit to the spirit of the holiday.

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• 11/22/2020
  

  UCLA Historian Carla Pestana Debunks Myths About the Pilgrims and the Plymouth Colony

  by James Thornton Harris

  Alert Tom Cotton: Plymouth Rock, the Mayflower Compact, and the origins of Thanksgiving are just a few of the things Professor Carla Pestana finds in need of historical revision. 

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• 11/15/2020
  

  Recovering Acts of Progressive Patriotism: Teaching Through Protest Music

  by Matthew Lindaman

  A history professor reflects on a course teaching critical perspectives on patriotism through protest and music that articulates an inclusive and progressive nationalism.

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• 11/15/2020
  

  A Medieval Perspective on the Public Acceptance of Women as Leaders

  by Erika Graham-Goering

  Whether in medieval France or in modern democracies, women's exercise of leadership has been constrained by gendered ideas of who can lead. 

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• 11/8/2020
  

  Eisenhower’s Election Day Crisis Reminds Us What Presidents Must Do

  by William Lambers

  The Suez crisis reminds us that we need presidents who seek to avoid war, even above their political ambitions. 

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• 11/8/2020
  

  The End of an Era? Athens After Empire

  by Ian Worthington

  “Hellenistic” Athens may not shine as brightly as Classical Athens, but it has lived unfairly in the shadow of its famous predecessor. It’s time it emerged from that shadow.

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• 11/1/2020
  

  Nostalgia and Progress: Fake History and the 2020 Elections

  by Walter G. Moss

  Trump's encouragement of a nostalgic, pseudohistorical understanding of the past thwarts both the hope for betterment and the determined realism Americans need at this moment. 

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• 10/25/2020
  

  "Refusing to Be Governed Like That": The Dangers of Trusting in History's Judgment

  by Joan Wallach Scott

  If, as the abolitionist Theodore Parker wrote, “the arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” then why bother to hasten its arrival? Those who don’t believe that history will guarantee a better future will act to bring a different future into being.  

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• Treason, the Death Penalty, and American Identity

  by Carlton F.W. Larson

  The only capital sentence for treason carried out under United States law shows the way that racism is embedded in the idea of national belonging. 

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• 10/18/2020
  

  Fraught Family Reunification After the Holocaust

  by Rebecca Clifford

  "A tenth of Europe's pre-war population of Jewish children survived the Holocaust. Many sought and achieved reunification with their families, but reunification did not usually end the trauma endured by this "fragment of an entire generation."

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• 10/12/2020
  

  My Memories of Voter Suppression

  by Lawrence Wittner

  After witnessing firsthand the depth of struggle needed to secure the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the author says the 2013 Supreme Court decision to gut the VRA and subsequent acts by state governments to suppress the vote "betray the most basic principle of democracy."

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• 10/11/2020
  

  The Lenin Plot: The Concealed History of The US-Led Effort to Overthrow the USSR

  by Barnes Carr

  "The Lenin Plot was a massive embarrassment for the Allies, and they tried to cover it up. The denial continued for years."

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• 10/11/2020
  

  Winners, All: A Personal History of Soldiers at War

  by Ron Steinman

  Whether they knew it at the time, the wounded servicemen the author met at the 3rd Field Hospital outside of Saigon were the spirit of America. Winners all, they were not then suckers, losers, fools or mugs.  

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• 10/11/2020
  

  "Provided I Can Fuse on Ground Which I Think is Right": A Lincolnian View of the White House History Conference

  by Allen C. Guelzo

  "The fact that Americans have not always lived up fully to that Enlightenment universalism, or that ethnicity has often gotten bloodily in the way of it, merely shows that we are human, not that it is wrong."

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• 10/11/2020
  

  The Battle of Salamis Opened the Door for Ancient Greece’s Golden Age

  by Fred Zilian

  September marked the 2,500th anniversary of the Battle of Salamis, where the Greeks won a surprising naval victory over Persian forces, thwarted their efforts to conquer Greece, and set the stage for the golden age of Athenian civilization. 

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• SOURCE: WABC New York
  10/5/2020
  

  Video: Danger on the Right (1964)

  A 1964 news story on the rise of the John Birch Society and its political views.

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• 10/4/2020
  

  Corrected American History: The Cheery Colonial Period

  by Lawrence Baron

  Peruse a leaked lesson plan from the 1776 commission. 

• 
• 10/4/2020
  

  Will 2020 Place the US Alongside Apartheid South Africa in History's Hall of Shame?

  by Teresa Barnes

  The South African National Party won a parliamentary victory in 1948 and consolidated power quickly to institutionalize Apartheid and focus national politics on racial issues. This surprise turned into a half-century of hard right rule and stands as a warning to Americans today.

• 
• 10/4/2020
  

  The Etymology of "Jazz": A Cautionary Word About Digital Sources

  by Ken Lawrence

  Digitization projects have made historical newspapers much more readily accessible, but the process admits error and historians should be cautious making bold claims based on them.