History (and Historians) Need a New Deal
By Shannan Clark
The Latest 
-
To Save Democracy, We Need Historical Memory to be "Hot"
Shannon Bontrager
Historical memory can run hot or cold; hot memory, when we make ourselves vulnerable to the pain of the past, is a force that will ensure America doesn't just move on from the needless death of the COVID pandemic or the violence of the Capitol insurrection without committing to justice and accountability.
-
Blog
The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.— A Conversation with Professor Peniel E. Joseph
Robin Lindley
"One of the fascinating things about King’s life is when he evolves and speaks truth to power. He's still talking about nonviolence, but he's speaking in bold radical terms about...
-
Young Du Bois in Germany: On the “Great Socialistic State of the Day"
Helmut Smith
As graduate student visiting imperial Germany in 1892, W.E.B. Du Bois was shaped by observations of social welfare policy and experiences of social acceptance that contrasted dramatically with Gilded Age and Jim Crow America.
-
How Democrats Lost the Great Plains
Ross Benes
Ross Benes argues that the Democratic party has lost an entire political generation of influence in the Great Plains by forfeiting the region's legacy of farmer populism, making the Plains a Republican stronghold and a barrier to progressive legislation.
-
Who Can Claim to be the United States’ First University?
Tom McSweeney, Katharine Ello and Elsbeth O'Brien
New documentary evidence shows that the College of William and Mary was chartered as a university in 1693, making it the first university in the colonies. The story reflects how the sectarian strife of England in the seventeenth century helped Anglican W&M and harmed Puritan Harvard.
-
Blog
Absurdity Theory
Steve Hochstadt
Marjorie Taylor Greene's flights of conspiratorialism incorporate the same core of absurdity as all conspiracy theories: that vast numbers of people, whether Jews, Democrats, or the Deep State,...
-
Blog
Why Voters Shouldn't Be Given the Chance to Re-Elect Donald Trump
Stone Age Brain
We can't let a president get away with crimes against our democracy just because he commits them in the final months of his term.
-
Weaponized Whiteness: Invisible Hand and Iron Fist
Fran Shor
There is a link between the summer's BLM protests and the Capitol riots. Both reflect a crisis of a political order based on the maintenance of white supremacy and nonwhite subordination through the "invisible hand" of institutions.
-
Notre Dame: The Soul of France (Review)
Jeff Roquen
Agnès Poirier's book describes the central place of the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris in the city and in French history both religious and secular, and the angst provoked by its threatened destruction by fire in 2019.
-
Unforgettable Images, and Something New in TV News
Ron Steinman
A month past the Capitol Riots, a veteran television news journalist observes that the coverage of the chaotic protest and breach of the Capitol relied on something new: masses of journalists and citizens (including the rioters) recording video on their phones where TV cameras couldn't operate, forming a rich and important composite of the day's events.
-
You Call This a Peaceful Transfer of Power?
Philip Gerard
"If we watched this scene play out in Argentina, Turkey, Ukraine, or Thailand, we would bemoan the failure of democracy, write about a fragile government battling rebel insurgents in its own capital, make dire predictions about how long such a government could stand."
-
The Constitution Forbids a Post-Presidential Impeachment Trial
William G. Hyland, Jr.
A biographer of George Mason argues that, by the text and original intent of the Constitutional impeachment power, Donald Trump's exposure to trial ended when he left office and the Senate trial set to start on February 8 is unconstitutional.
-
Not the First Mob Attack on the Government in D.C.
Stan M. Haynes
An angry mob threatened John Tyler and his family in the White House and burnt him in effigy on the grounds after he vetoed the Whig Party's bill for a second Bank of the United States in 1841, leading Congress to authorize a night police patrol for the District of Columbia.
-
The Roundup Top Ten for February 5, 2021
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
-
The 1776 Presidential Commissioners Forgot That Dissent is as American as Hero Worship
David Wippman and Glenn C. Altschuler
After insisting that educators avoid “political agendas,” the 1776 Commission Report authors simply assume that their simplistic hero-worship version of history is “accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling.”
-
The January 6th Assault on Congress and the Fate of the GOP’s Faustian Bargain with Trump: Notes from German History
Jeffrey Herf
It does not seem that even facing the prospect of death at the hands of a Trumpist mob will convince the Republican Party to abandon its bargain with Trump. German conservative elites made a choice to stay the course in the 1930s that led to national ruin and defeat.
-
Hidden in Plain Sight: History Teaching Needs to Take Advantage of Art and Material Culture
Elizabeth Stice
"Where there is passion, people will pursue the past. A sneakerhead can tell you about the innovations in Air Jordans over the years and oftentimes quite a bit about the economic and cultural context of each shoe. Art and material culture can lead people to their own study of the past."
-
Palin v. New York Times is a Textualist Land Mine for the First Amendment
Richard E. Labunski
In June, trial will begin in Sarah Palin's libel case against the New York Times. The case appears to be teed up on a path to the Supreme Court, where the current "actual malice" standard for proving a public figure was libeled could be overturned. If this happens, the door will be open to lawsuits aimed at crushing press criticism of the government.
-
Democracy, Violence, and the Legacy of the American Revolution
David W. Houpt
Although many of the Capitol rioters claimed to defend the Constitution, their actions reflect ideas derived from the Revolutionary period that the people have the right to resist tyranny by force. The Constitution sought to check that impulse by establishing a representative republic and a cultural bargain to live by the results of elections, but the two ideas have never been resolved.
-
What J-Lo Sang
Mark F. Fernandez
Jennifer Lopez's Inaugural performance showed that Woody Guthrie’s lyric, his notion of an inclusive America, still resonates today as Americans ponder questions of unity.
-
How Biden used the VP Springboard to Vault into the Oval Office
Joel K. Goldstein
Joe Biden's leap from VP to POTUS is a rarity. Vice presidents are often contenders, but seldom successful. Circumstance helped Biden break the mold, but so did learning on the job as second-in-command to become a more credible candidate for the top job.
-
Trump's Lost Cause Appeal: Can Cultural Victory Follow Political Defeat?
Paul J. Croce
Donald Trump has already begun to follow the Confederate script for a "Lost Cause" battle for cultural validation. Those tempted to join that cause should remember that aside from validating grievances and bigotry, the original Lost Cause did little to help most white Southerners.
-
Poverty, Politics and Pandemic: The Plague and the English Peasant's Revolt of 1381
Alfred Thomas and Peter Rutland
Seen in a historical context of pandemic-induced paranoia, antisemitic conspiracy, and broad-based resentment, the English rebels start to look less like the innocent victims of tyranny and more like the Trump supporters who invaded the Capitol.
-
Blog
The Mystery of the Great Seal
Ann Banks
This is the story I remember being told as a child: At the time of the Civil War, there was cast in solid gold a Great Seal of the Confederate States of America. Toward the end of...
-
The Audacious Escape of George Blake
Steve Vogel
George Blake was the most notorious double agent in Cold War Britain, which makes the story of his amateurish (but successful) escape from prison all the more remarkable.
-
Lawrence Gellert, Black Musical Protest & White Denial: An Interview With Steven Garabedian
Aaron J. Leonard
Steve Garabedian's new book reexamines the life and work of Lawrence Gellert, a Jewish New Yorker who relocated to the South, recorded African American songs, and clashed with the growing establishment of white folklorists. Is it time to reappraise Gellert's contributions to the preservation of Black musical culture?
-
A Devil’s Dozen of the Most Important Religion Stories of 2020
Ed Simon
Many people would like to leave 2020 behind. HNN Contributing Editor Ed Simon compiles, for those readers ready for a distanced reflection on a year that may have tested faith, a roundup of the best stories at the intersection of religion and history.
-
Trumpism is the Rage of a Threatened Masculine Ideal. What's the Alternative?
Walter G. Moss
Trump's brand of authoritarian populism hinges on performing a belligerent self-centered masculinity that resonates with white male grievances and anxieties. American politics needs a model of manliness that includes cooperation, humility and courage to pull back from the horror suggested by January 6th's mob attack on the Capitol.
-
Blog
Charges of Hypocrisy are the Last Refuge of the Hypocrite
Steve Hochstadt
The Republican response to the Capitol riots has been to invoke false equivalencies and what-abouts with BLM and "Antifa" and to desperately accuse the Democrats of hypocrisy, while ignor...
-
The Roundup Top Ten for January 29, 2021
The top opinion writing by historans and about history from around the web this week.
-
1964: The Election that Turned American Politics Tribal
James A. Morone
In 1964, George Wallace's primary challenge to LBJ inspired Republicans to take up the mantle of the white party. Trumpism represents the dead end of that path.
-
Trump Inflamed the American "War of Sections." What Comes Next?
Steve Suitts
2020 shows the south is arguably still the key region in American politics, but it may not be a stronghold of white conservative politics for long.
-
Kamala Harris and the Modern Vice Presidency
Richard Moe
Kamala Harris seems poised to exert influence over policy and legislation as vice president. In this sense, she will carry forward the evolution of the office, according to a former vice presidential chief of staff who contributed to the development of the "modern vice presidency."
-
Misremember the Alamo
Douglas Sackman
Like most Americans, when Trump tries to "remember the Alamo," he gets it all wrong. His recent visit to Alamo, Texas was 240 miles south of the mission so holy to many Texans, but it was closer in spirit than Trump probably realized.
-
Will Eugene Goodman Share the Fate of Frank Wills?
Adam Henig
Congress and the nation have celebrated the heroic actions of Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, who distracted a mob to give members of Congress time to reach safety. When his momentary fame fades, Goodman deserves better than another unexpected hero, Watergate security guard Frank Wills.
-
Biden's Inaugural and the Return of History
Paul J. Welch Behringer
Joseph Biden's inaugural address signals a willingness to return to learning from history that may encourage the empathy and humilty elected officials need to solve the nation's problems.
-
"Hands Off Until He Was Safe Over": David Reynolds Urges Biden to Look to Lincoln
James Thornton Harris
Historian David S. Reynolds recently published Abe: Abraham Lincoln and his Times, a cultural biography that shows how the 16th president was shaped by the many social currents swirling in the young United States.
-
Vice Presidential Loyalty and Independence
Ron Faucheux
As the Trump era comes to an end, Vice President Pence is paddling his own boat. Where he goes is now up to him––and him alone.
-
Cheese to Chalk: Can Democracies be Compared to Dictatorships?
Leonid Luks
A German historian argues that American scholars and commentators have for years been too quick to equate antidemocratic measures taken by Republicans with Hitler's seizure of dictatorial power, dismissing ample research on the nature of totalitarian regimes. The last three months have shown that America's core institutions are not weak enough to be crushed.
-
Historians Pay Tribute to Hank Aaron
HNN Staff
Hank Aaron, an all-time great of baseball and for many years its all-time leader in home runs, passed away at age 86 on January 22. Historians recall him as a player, an advocate for civil rights inside and outside the game, and a man who was uneasy being made into a symbol of progress against racism.
-
George Washington Resisted the Siren Call of Absolute Power
Jan-Benedict Steenkamp
George Washington is celebrated for his refusal to continue past two terms as President. But his earlier actions in refusing the leadership of a military coup against the Continental Congress in 1783 put the new nation on track to have civilian leadership under law.
-
The Roundup Top Ten for January 22, 2021
The top opinion writing by historians from around the web this week.
