Historians in the News

This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used.

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• 4/2/2020
  

  NCMC Mourns the Loss of Longtime Professor Who Died Due to COVID-19

  Larry Cummings was a history and geography professor at North Central Michigan College for more than 50 years.

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• SOURCE: Quartz
  4/1/2020
  

  The US Government Has a Long History of Using Crises to Justify Indefinite Mass Detention

  Governments, both federal and local, are already flirting with emergency powers to fight the spread of coronavirus that contravene the rights residents normally take for granted.

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• SOURCE: Ashland Tidings
  4/1/2020
  

  SOU Linguistics Professor Writes a Book About the History of Presidential Insults

  In his new book, “Dangerous Crooked Scoundrels,” Southern Oregon University professor Edwin Battistella details the vicious, scurrilous and often laughable ways American political operatives have used name-calling to provoke and besmirch foes in the top job.

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• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  4/2/2020
  

  Scholars v. COVID-19 Racism

  Scholars are among those confronting the rise in anti-Asian and anti-Asian American racism that’s come with COVID-19.

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• SOURCE: The Metropole (Urban History Association)
  4/01/2020
  

  Neglected Gems of Urban History

  by Richard Harris

  For two generations, Lampard told urban historians that cities mattered especially, but not only, in economic terms.

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• SOURCE: Crain's Cleveland Business
  3/30/2020
  

  And The Winners of the 2020 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Are ...

  Henry Louis Gates Jr., who chairs the Anisfield-Wolf jury, said in a statement that the winners "bring us fresh insights on race and diversity."

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• SOURCE: AHA Committee on LGBTQ History
  3/30/2020
  

  AHA's Committee on LGBT History Announces Hardship Grants

  In an effort to address member needs, we are announcing 10 CLGBTH Hardship Grants of $200 each to members of the Committee. First-come first-served, no questions asked.

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• SOURCE: Vox
  3/28/2020
  

  What Both the Left and the Right Get Wrong About the Coronavirus Economic Crisis

  Financial historian Adam Tooze on the lessons policymakers need to learn, and fast.

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• SOURCE: Forbes
  3/29/2020
  

  As COVID-19 Spreads, Mary Barra Needs To Denounce Trump As Bad For Capitalism

  Historian Nelson Lichtenstein compares Trump's response to coronavirus with previous presidents' handling of crises.

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  3/30/2020
  

  Pandemics and the Shape of Human History

  Outbreaks have sparked riots and propelled public-health innovations, prefigured revolutions and redrawn maps.

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• SOURCE: Bloomberg Quint
  3/29/2020
  

  How to Battle the Coronavirus and Win: A Historians’ Roundtable

  How unprecedented is this situation, really? Business and military historian Mark Wilson, economist Mark Harrison, and political scientist Rosella Cappella Zielinski discuss.  

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• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  3/30/2020
  

  Responsibility and Civility: The Unwritten Essentials

  by Mary Lindemann

  Critical to the prospering of any academic group are the unwritten expectations that underlie and ground its workings. When they’re observed, organizations prosper; when they’re disregarded, things go terribly wrong.

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• SOURCE: WFAE
  3/27/2020
  

  Darius Swann Changed Charlotte's School System, Local Historian Remembers

  Local historian Pamela Grundy discusses the Rev. Dr. Darius Swann who was the lead plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case Swann v. Charlotte - Mecklenburg Board of Education. He died on March 8, at the age of 95.

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• SOURCE: The Pantagraph
  3/31/2020
  

  Illinois State University Professor in Italy: "It Got Real Bad Real Fast"

  "I didn't take this thing as seriously as I should have. No one here really did," said Jasper. "It got real bad, real fast."

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• SOURCE: Science Magazine
  3/30/2020
  

  Lead Pollution in Ancient Ice Cores May Track the Rise and Fall of Medieval Kings

  Recently, scientists have identified startling spikes of lead deposited in medieval times in Arctic ice cores and in lake sediments in Europe.

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• SOURCE: Prospect Magazine
  3/26/2020
  

  Interview With Historian Archie Brown: Rethinking the Cold War

  There's a widespread assumption that the Soviet Union had no alternative to ending the Cold War in the way they did. But that's wrong, says the Oxford historian.

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• SOURCE: Salon
  3/27/2020
  

  Political Prophet Allan Lichtman: Trump is More Likely to Lose Because of Coronavirus

  Allan Lichtman has a record of predicting presidential elections — and he thinks pandemic could doom Trump.

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  3/25/2020
  

  A Historian’s View of the Coronavirus Pandemic and the Influenza of 1918

  This video historian John M. Barry outlines the comparison between the influenza epidemic of 1918 and the coronavirus.

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• SOURCE: Art News
  3/25/2020
  

  5 Essential Works by Maurice Berger, Late Art Historian Who Made Race a Central Concern

  A tireless advocate for a more diverse museum world, Berger, who died at 63 of coronavirus-related causes on Monday 3/23, is considered one of the best thinkers on race, in particular as it relates to photography.

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• SOURCE: Vox
  3/30/2020
  

  A Brief History of Beards and Pandemics

  Unlike what was thought during the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918, beards cannot trap germs nor transfer disease.