Links to Recent Articles of Interest
By Matthew Karp, Harper's Magazine, July 2021 issue
A nuanced, sometimes surprising long essay analyzing current political controversies over the American past. The author teaches US history at Princeton University, specializing in the Civil War era.
Democracy Now, posted June 14
Transcript of a new interview by Amy Goodman's with Daniel Ellsberg on how he brought top-secret documents on the Vietnam War to the public eye. The transcript is intercut with excerpts from past documentaries about the Pentagon Papers.
By Charles J. Holden, History News Network, posted June 14
Compares contemporary attacks on critical race theory with protests in the 1920s against the teaching of evolution – protests which involved an attack on expertise as such. The author teaches history at St. Mary's College (Maryland) and is the author of Republican Populist: Spiro Agnew and the Origins of Donald Trump's America (U. of Virginia Press, 2019).
By Deb Haaland, Washington Post, posted June 11
In this article by the current Secretary of the Interior, the first Native American to serve as a US Cabinet secretary, she places members of her own family among the”tens of thousands of Indigenous children” who “were taken from their communities and forced into scores of boarding schools run by religious institutions and the U.S. government.”
By Andrew J. Bacevich, The American Conservative, posted June 8
“The present generation of senior U.S. military officers has an aversion to confronting uncomfortable truths.”Analysis and critique of a recent press briefing on Afghanistan by General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The author is a retired Army colonel and a professor emeritus of history and International relations at Boston University.”
By Chas Freeman, Responsible Statecraft, posted June 5
” After centuries of domination by foreigners – most recently by the United States – the Middle East is now being reshaped primarily by interactions between countries within it.” The author is a retired US diplomat who served in the Froreign Service and State and Defense Departments for thirty years.
Interview with Robin D. G. Kelley by George Yancey, Truthout.org, posted June 1
On the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and its context, critiquing some of the ways it has been framed, by liberals as well as the right. Robin Kelley teaches history at the University of California, Los Angeles.
By Karlos K. Hill, American Historical Review, posted May 31
The author teaches African and African American history at the University of Oklahoma. “As a historian of lynching and racial violence, I have spent most of my career studying the ways in which Black communities have experienced and made sense of white terrorist violence. However, it was not until I began working at the University of Oklahoma and visited the site of one of the staples of my teaching, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, that I came to realize the impact of community-engaged history.”
By Lawrence Wittner, History News Network, posted May 30
A review essay that provides fascinating background on the writing, publication, and reception of John Hersey's account of the impact on civilian lives of the August 6, 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, first published as an entire issue of the New Yorker a year after the bombing. The author is a professor emeritus of history at SUNY Albany.
By Gail Savage, Washington Post, posted May 26
On the elaboration of public policy in early nineteenth-century Britain, focusing on debates between Thomas Malthus and William Hazlitt. The author teaches history at St. Mary's College of Maryland, specializing in modern Britain.
Thanks to Kevin Young, Rusti Eisenberg, Frank Dorrel,
and an anonymous reader for flagging some of the above articles. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.
and an anonymous reader for flagging some of the above articles. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.