History Archives - Page 12 of 13

History

Thou Shalt Not Be Indifferent

February 5, 2020 • by Ben Stanley

--- Dear friends, I am one of the few still alive of those who remained in this place almost until the very last moment before liberation. My so-called evacuation from Auschwitz began on the 18th of January. Over the next six and a half days it would prove a death march ...

History

The QE2 Bridge and the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) Hangover

A collectively inherited misfortune

February 4, 2020 • by David Anderson

High levels of traffic mean that the bridge is routinely denounced as Britain’s worst section of motorway, although it is in fact technically only an A-road, and not an M: this, according to a helpful attendant at the ‘crossing office’ on the Dartford side, being to permit the passage of ...

The QE2 Bridge and the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) Hangover

History

Thomas Paine’s Radicalism, and Ours

Rights of Man for the 21st century

February 4, 2020 • by Frances A. Chiu

But in truth, many of his principles and propositions can be traced back still further, to the ideas of founding father Thomas Paine in Rights of Man (1791-1792). Although Paine made no mention of either public health care or tuition-free universities during a period when medicine was still in its infancy and ...

History

‘Scenarios of Uncertainty’ in Britain’s steel communities

January 20, 2020 • by Tosh Warwick

In November 2019, it was announced that the most recent manifestation of ‘British Steel’ had been saved following the purchase of the ailing firm by the Chinese Jingye Group. The £70m takeover promises to save thousands of jobs and bring in £1 billion investment. The news brought relief for those ...

‘Scenarios of Uncertainty’ in Britain’s steel communities

History

Reparations, Atonement, or Both

Why Atonement is a Necessary Step for National Healing

January 3, 2020 • by Troy Mosley

When the first Africans arrived at Point Comfort, VA, they did not suffer the unmitigated brutality of chattel slavery that their progeny would endure; that hadn’t been invented. Some of these first Africans who arrived in 1619 were freed, some intermarried with white indentured servants, and some escaped. For the ...

Activism

A Public Service

Whistleblowing, Disclosure and Anonymity

December 12, 2019 • by Tim Schwartz

In 1965, 28-year-old Peter Buxtun was hired by the U.S. Public Health Service in San Francisco as a venereal disease investigator. Shortly after starting his job, Buxtun began hearing about a little-known, ongoing study on African-American males with syphilis. To Buxtun’s ears, this didn’t sound right -- by the late ...

History

This Mess of Troubled Times

Has 1989 vanished beneath a mountain of interpretation and reflection?

November 26, 2019 • by Karl Schlögel

The processes set in motion by the disintegration of the socialist economy in eastern Europe eluded all analytical frameworks. It was a time of ‘wild thinking’, in which received ideas were reconsidered and values re-assessed. We are still living through this troubled era, writes the historian of the Soviet Union ...

History

The Whistleblowers of the My Lai Massacre

How three ordinary soldiers exposed a crime

November 19, 2019 • by Howard Jones

On March 16, 1968, about 200 American soldiers from Bravo and Charlie companies -- part of the Americal Division’s 11th Infantry Brigade -- entered the complex of South Vietnamese villages now known as My Lai, and killed 504 unarmed villagers, including elderly men, women, children, and babies. The “My Lai ...

History

Public Thinker: an Interview with Kevin Kruse

Why recent history is still history

November 18, 2019 • by Lily Geismer

Thinking in public demands knowledge, eloquence, and courage. In this interview series, we hear from public scholars about how they found their path and how they communicate to a wide audience. “Historian. Author/editor of White Flight; The New Suburban History; Spaces of the Modern City; Fog of War; One Nation Under ...

Democracy

The Impeachers

The Trial Of Andrew Johnson And The Dream Of A Just Nation

October 29, 2019 • by Brenda Wineapple

“Andrew Johnson was the queerest man who ever occupied the White House,” one of his colleagues remembered. As Lincoln’s Vice President, thrust into the presidency after Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson earned the hatred and opprobrium of most Republicans, particularly those members of Lincoln’s party in Congress who initially hoped that he ...

History

The Syrian Crisis in Longer View

A review of Fragile Nation, Shattered Land

October 28, 2019 • by Spenser Rapone

Reviewed by Spenser R. Rapone The future of the Syrian Arab Republic, still embroiled in a brutal civil war, is today a topic of raging debate in the Middle East and beyond. Taking the long view, James A. Reilly’s Fragile Nation, Shattered Land: The Modern History of Syria recounts the origins ...

History

So You Are Finishing Your United States History Syllabus

Public Seminar is here to give you a hand

August 20, 2018 • by Claire Potter

The United States historians at Public Seminar know what our high school and university colleagues are doing right now: finishing syllabi for the fall. We know the feeling of needing just the right piece – something that will spark discussion, show students what good historical writing looks like, and give ...