History Archives - Page 6 of 13

Democracy

Winston Churchill’s North American Tour

In the summer of 1929, the future prime minister almost quit politics

March 30, 2021 • by Josh Ireland

_____ One night in the summer of 1929, Winston Churchill, who was staying in a bungalow owned by William Randolph Hearst, was horrified to see a bulky figure clambering through his window. The intruder, Winston realized, was his son Randolph, who seemed equally startled. Randolph had expected to find Hearst’s daughter-in-law, who ...

Higher Ed

The Education Trap

Schools and the remaking of inequality in Boston

March 22, 2021 • by Cristina Groeger

————— Despite its centrality in public life and scholarly debate, education, surprisingly, has not been a chief focus of political or economic histories of the modern United States. The role of schools, however, has been fundamental to American historical development in several key ways. Politically, education was a key driver of ...

History

We Lionize Abraham Lincoln – But John Wilkes Booth Still Embodies a Part of America’s Soul

How the insurrection on January 6th brought a legendary assassin back to life

March 18, 2021 • by Bennett Parten

"But if January 6 should tell us anything, it’s that his cause is far from lost. Like Lincoln, the ghost of John Wilkes Booth still haunts us from the grave." - Bennett Parten ...

We Lionize Abraham Lincoln – But John Wilkes Booth Still Embodies a Part of America’s Soul

History

An Empire of Sanctions

A syllabus from the Historians for Peace and Democracy

March 12, 2021 • by Renate Bridenthal, Molly Nolan and Prasannan Parthasarathi

Sanctions are now the preferred economic weapon that the United States uses to pressure, discipline and coerce enemies and even allies. Sanctions restrict targeted states from importing, exporting and receiving investments; they prohibit US corporations and banks from dealing with those countries, and they limit the economic activities of individuals in ...

Feminism

Women’s History, An Origin Story

In 1975, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg published “The Female World of Love and Ritual, and changed how my generation of feminists understood the practice of history

March 1, 2021 • by Claire Potter

I first encountered Carroll Smith-Rosenberg’s “The Female World of Love and Ritual” in 1978. I was twenty and a junior at Yale. A teaching assistant passed it on to me when I met with her after class: a paper was due and my mind was empty. She said that there ...

Democracy

The United States Is in Recovery

What Texas, white supremacy and coronavirus can teach us about American history

February 18, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

"In the exchange, Americans saw a president who cared, and a government that finally, after its previous leaders had told them to get out of a terrible catastrophe on their own, responded to their needs."...

History

Larry Flynt

Past Present Podcast, Episode 267

February 16, 2021 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Larry Flynt, founder of the Hustler empire, died this month. Niki recommended historian Carolyn Bronstein’s book Battling Pornography: The American Feminist Anti-Pornography Movement, 1976-1986 and referred to this Politico article about the GOP abandoning the war on pornography. Natalia mentioned ...

History

Can History Tell Us Whether Trumpism Is A Fascist Movement?

Four lessons from Japan’s journey to war in the 1930s say that we should be asking other questions

February 11, 2021 • by Ian Rapley

"In other words, left unaddressed, the danger is that the ideas and networks behind January 6th’s events will resurface again. "...

History

Insurrection and Apocalypse: Staring Down Monsters, from the Middle Ages to America Today

How the medieval understanding of redemptive violence can illuminate the impulses of some Christian conservatives today

February 11, 2021 • by Jehangir Yezdi Malegam

Nine hundred years ago, on April 25, 1112 – an Easter Sunday – a mob in the French town of Laon rose up in a carnival of vandalism and homicide. Witnesses describe a world turned upside down. Merchants murdered the local bishop and set fire to the town’s cathedral. Serfs ...

Insurrection and Apocalypse: Staring Down Monsters, from the Middle Ages to America Today

History

Collars, Cuffs, and History Collaborations

With Welcome to Your Fantasy, a well-known history podcasting team takes on the Chippendales dancers

February 10, 2021 • by Claire Potter, Nicole Hemmer, Neil J. Young and Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

"with that, this interview is history."...

History

Good and Evil

An excerpt from On Love and Tyranny: The Life and Politics of Hannah Arendt

February 5, 2021 • by Ann Heberlein

_____ Goodness exists, even in the darkest of moments. It is worth remembering this—that the violence and brutality of the war did not only bring out the worst in people. The darkness also inspired goodness, bravery, and responsibility. There are countless examples of people who, often at great risk to themselves ...

History

What Yellen and Hamilton Comparisons Omit

Women’s progress is not guaranteed

February 3, 2021 • by Sara Damiano

When President Joseph Biden nominated Janet Yellen to become the first female Secretary of the United States Treasury, references to Alexander Hamilton began immediately. Invoking Lin Manuel-Miranda’s hit musical, Biden quipped that Yellen, like the first Treasury secretary, deserved her own production. In response, American Public Media’s Marketplace commissioned hip-hop ...