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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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/25/2021
  

  A Monument Honoring Brooklyn Abolitionists Stalls Under Scrutiny

  “Whatever we build in Downtown Brooklyn should rival the Statue of Liberty,” said Raul Rothblatt, who has fought to preserve the area’s history for nearly 20 years. He added: “But instead, the city is planning to build a dog park above where tunnels once connected abolitionist homes.”

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  1/27/2021
  

  The Persistence of Hate In American Politics

  After Charlottesville, the historian Joan Wallach Scott wanted to find out how societies face up to their past—and why some fail. Aryeh Neier reviews Scott's comparative history of the Nuremberg Trials, the South African Truth and Reconciliation effort, and the debate over reparations to African Americans for slavery and Jim Crow. 

• 
• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  1/26/2021
  

  ‘Despised’ Review: The Left and the Working Class

  by Jonathan Rose

  Historian Jonathan Rose reviews a book by British firefighter and "left conservative" Paul Embery which identifies the collapse of both working class communities and open debate in Britain as factors in the demise of Labour as a political force. 

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  1/26/2021
  

  How Mexico Reshaped the Global Economy: Interview With Christy Thornton

  The Mexican government demanded a program of economic reparations to the developing world, but the system of international aid and trade that emerged worsened exploitation. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  1/27/2021
  

  The Logic of Eugenics Still Haunts Virginia

  Ellen Wayland-Smith reviews Elizabeth Catte's book Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia. 

• 
• SOURCE: Spectrum One News
  1/26/2021
  

  Website Documents Over 700 Lynchings in Texas

  Jeff Littlejohn of Sam Houston State University has launched a website to make accessible information about more than 700 documented lynchings in the state of Texas. 

• 
• SOURCE: Daily Beast
  1/23/2021
  

  This Professor Protested a School’s Racism. Then He Lost His Job

  "The sudden termination of Felber sends a very strong and disturbing message. Felber was doing antiracist work and initiated programs that benefited the marginalized and disenfranchised."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/25/2021
  

  After the Capitol Was Stormed, Teachers Try Explaining History in Real Time

  The eruption of political violence at the US Capitol has challenged teachers of history and civics at all grade levels and pushed teachers of other subjects to respond to their students' experience of confusion, anger, or sadness. 

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  1/26/2021
  

  Race on Campus: The Mental Burden of Minority Professors

  Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz writes about mental health challenges facing minority faculty at predominantly white institutions, quoting historians Marcia Chatelain and Katrina Phillips. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  1/25/2021
  

  Against the Consensus Approach to History

  by William Hogeland

  Current debates about the historiography of slavery and the founding mistake the authority claimed by past generations of historians for scholarly integrity instead of recognizing that writing history has always been a political act (that often works to conceal its politics).

• 
• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  

  We’ve Had a White Supremacist Coup Before. History Buried It

  LeRae Sikes Umfleet's 2009 book explored the 1898 Wilmington insurrection and showed “how people could get murdered in the streets and no one held accountable for it.”

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  1/24/2021
  

  Historian Discusses The Politics That Shape U.S. History In Schools

  Hasan Kwame Jeffries: "Nobody's placing that blame on children. No child in school today is even responsible for the mess that we have right now. But they are responsible for the problems of tomorrow and of the future."

• 
• SOURCE: The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow
  1/22/2021
  

  Keri Leigh Merritt on White Myths, Lost Causes & True History

  A discussion of the continued relevance of Confederate Lost Cause mythology in the January 6 Capitol riots. 

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  1/15/2021
  

  When White Extremism Seeps Into The Mainstream

  Historian Kathleen Belew discusses the history of the far right and the work of separating the hard core of the movement from its fringes and those who might be persuaded to join it. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  1/14/2021
  

  A TV Documentary Shows the Deep Roots of Right-Wing Conspiracy

  New Yorker critic Richard Brody discusses the 1964 broadcast of "Danger on the Right" on the John Birch Society. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/23/2021
  

  The Trump Presidency Is Now History. So How Will It Rank?

  Historians disagree whether Trump surpasses the awfulness of Buchanan or Andrew Johnson, but a roster of them consulted by the Times agrees he was terrible. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Intercept
  1/23/2021
  

  Capitol Attack was Culmination of Generations of Far-Right Extremism

  Historians Robin D.G. Kelley and Greg Grandin discuss the historical relationship between white supremacy and political violence in the US. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/23/2021
  

  Biden Seeks to Define His Presidency by an Early Emphasis on Equity

  Nicole Hemmer argues that Joe Biden appears more willing to pledge action on racial equity than Barack Obama was; it remains to be seen if Biden can avoid a backlash from conservatives. 

• 
• SOURCE: Vox
  1/13/2021
  

  Can the Republican Party be Saved?

  Geoffrey Kabaservice is the author of "Rule and Ruin," a history of the Republican Party since 1950. He discusses the party's turn toward right-wing radicalism with Vox's Sean Illing. 

• 
• SOURCE: Public Books
  1/25/2021
  

  How Versailles Still Haunts the World

  by Joanne Randa Nucho

  Anthropologist Joanne Randa Nucho and Public Books present a virtual forum on the ongoing legacies and impacts of the Treaty of Versailles.