"Refusing to Be Governed Like That": The Dangers of Trusting in History's Judgment
By Joan Wallach Scott
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Survivors, Apprentices, and Entrepreneurial Sharks: The Mark Burnett Reality TV Presidency
Daniel Horowitz
Mark Burnett's reality TV empire has championed individualism and the myth of the entrepreneurial genius while reviving the celebrity and launching the political career of Donald Trump. Is 2020 the end of the line for both?
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Trump: Superhero or Superspreader?
Meredith Martin, Gillian Weiss and Bonnie Siegler
Inspired by the Sun King’s detractors, the White House Gift Shop’s self-parodying statements, and Trump’s own Superman fantasies, we offer a medal honoring the Super Spreader.
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FDR Was Right to Propose Enlarging the Court
James D. Robenalt
Franklin Roosevelt's error in 1937 was not to propose expanding the court, it was to fail to explain and defend his popular political reasons for doing so.
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A Star-Spangled Moment of Reckoning for U.S. Civil-Military Relations?
Gregory D. Foster
The "deal" between the military and civilian leadership has hinged on an exchange of obedience to lawful authority by the military for expectations of honesty, competence, and respect for the Constitution on the part of elected leaders. This deal has been taken for granted, until now.
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Where Ross Douthat Goes Wrong
Jim Sleeper
Jim Sleeper argues that Times columnist Ross Douthat's brand of conservatism fixates on a supposed liberal cultural domination while ignoring the right's long path to consolidating power through the law, institutions and the threat of physical force.
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Blog
Bergen-Belsen Through the Eyes of a Teenaged Inmate: A Conversation with Bernice Lerner
Robin Lindley
Robin Lindley interviews Dr. Bernice Lerner, whose book "All the Horrors of War" connects the stories of Dr. Glyn Hughes, the British military doctor tasked with the health of liberated p...
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‘One Man, and One Man Alone’: Mussolini’s War
John Gooch
Mussolini acted on the spur of the moment, always sensitive to the need to be seen as Hitler’s equal. Rarely did anyone ever try to talk him out of a chosen course, and when they did so they failed. You couldn’t reason with him.
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The Queen's Two Bodies
Ed Simon
Queen Elizabeth's speech to English soliders in anticipation of the Spanish invasion of 1588 rallied the troops for a battle that never happened. But it anticipated today's cultural battle over the stability of gender categories.
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Reading Pope Francis's "Fratelli Tutti" through Carl Sandburg
Walter G. Moss
The latest encyclical by Pope Francis, calling for recognition of the unity of humanity, echoes the egalitarian humanism of the poet and writer Carl Sandburg.
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Joe Biden Is Setting A Record That No One Has Noticed
David O. Stewart
Joe Biden has been on the national ticket as a candidate three times, a distinction shared by both great and mediocre figures in American history. If he's victorious, he'd become one of only 6 people to win three times.
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An Interview with Ian W. Toll, author of "Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945"
James Thornton Harris
"Military histories have tended to take a “stay in your lane” approach, adhering to accounts of battles and operations. I prefer to weave the strands of politics and foreign policy into the fabric of the narrative."
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The Roundup Top Ten for October 23, 2020
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
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Fraught Family Reunification After the Holocaust
Rebecca Clifford
"A tenth of Europe's pre-war population of Jewish children survived the Holocaust. Many sought and achieved reunification with their families, but reunification did not usually end the trauma endured by this "fragment of an entire generation."
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"Every Goodbye Ain’t Gone and Every Close Eye Ain’t Shut": Black Georgians' Memories and Election Unease
Alicia K. Jackson
The unspoken realities of past voter suppression resonate in the present experience of many Black Georgians.
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Treason, the Death Penalty, and American Identity
Carlton F.W. Larson
The only capital sentence for treason carried out under United States law shows the way that racism is embedded in the idea of national belonging.
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Fear of the "Pussification" of America: A Short Cultural History
Gregory A. Daddis
The bizarre idea that COVID-19 can be defeated through manliness is one of the stranger cultural themes of our time, but it connects to a long history of anxiety about masculinity in a changing America that encourages violent and even self-destructive actions in the name of proving virility.
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Ranking Donald Trump: No Cause for National Happiness
James M. Banner, Jr.
He’s accomplished what no other president has been able to achieve since the first presidential ranking in 1948. He’s managed to raise James Buchanan, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, and Warren Harding off the floor. The sad thing is that this is no achievement we can cheer.
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Does the "Divided Loyalty" Question Still Dog Catholic Politicians?
D.G. Hart
Joe Biden will likely do what JFK and Al Smith did, namely, fit his faith into the norms of American politics.
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My Memories of Voter Suppression
Lawrence Wittner
After witnessing firsthand the depth of struggle needed to secure the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the author says the 2013 Supreme Court decision to gut the VRA and subsequent acts by state governments to suppress the vote "betray the most basic principle of democracy."
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Where In The World Are You? How My Great-Grandmother’s Letters Helped Me Locate My Great-Uncle after 78 Years
Hazel Gaynor
"Disaster and tragedy are often where we find our strongest bonds, and as we find ourselves separated from family and distanced from loved ones, stories of community and shared hope are, arguably, more important than ever."
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Lessons from the 18th Century Dutch Republic
Matthijs Tieleman
The history of the Dutch Republic demonstrates that polarization can gradually destroy a country from within and can easily be exploited by foreign actors. The embrace of political pluralism by every citizen is the key antidote to the rot of polarization.
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Blog
Return to the Presidential Succession Act of 1886 (With Some Modification)
Ronald L. Feinman
Presidential succession would extend past the vice president only in a dire circumstance, when the nation could ill afford a partisan battle. Reverting to the Presidential Succession Act of 1886 wo...
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Blog
Vaughn Davis Bornet, RIP at 102
Stone Age Brain
He wrote for HNN for years. He continued writing after he turned 100.
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"The Silent Guns of Two Octobers" Reviewing a New History of the Cuban Missile Crisis
Sheldon M. Stern
Longtime JFK Library historian Sheldon Stern offers a review of a new book on the diplomatic resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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The Roundup Top Ten for October 16, 2020
The top op eds by historians from around the web this week.
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"Provided I Can Fuse on Ground Which I Think is Right": A Lincolnian View of the White House History Conference
Allen C. Guelzo
"The fact that Americans have not always lived up fully to that Enlightenment universalism, or that ethnicity has often gotten bloodily in the way of it, merely shows that we are human, not that it is wrong."
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Who Owns Churchill?: Three Mythic Configurations
Steven Fielding, Bill Schwarz, and Richard Toye
A new book examines the ways that Winston Churchill's image has been used in British politics, not least by Churchill himself.
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Judicial Overreach in High Partisan Times: How the Dred Scott Decision Broke the Democrats and Boomeranged on the Court
James A. Morone
We usually parse Dred Scott v. Sandford as the Worst Decision Ever, but it also offers an overlooked political lesson. The Court waded into a high partisan battle and badly damaged the institutions behind the ruling.
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The Coming Election and the Political State of Fugue
Danielle Taana Smith
American institiutions are threatened with transformation into unrecognizable and undemocratic forms; stopping these changes means holding on to a collective sense of national purpose in the face of misinformation and gaslighting.
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Corporate Money Turns Democracy Upside Down in California Initiative Process
James Thornton Harris
Intended as a tool to circumvent the power of big business in the state legislature, California's ballot initiative process has become yet another channel for the political influence of big money.
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Paul Revere Made the Boston Massacre a Flashpoint for Revolution.
Philip Gerard
The incident that became known as the Boston Massacre didn't have to happen, and didn't have to become a flashpoint for violence after. As political tensions break into violence today, it's worthwhile to think about Boston in 1770.
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The Lenin Plot: The Concealed History of The US-Led Effort to Overthrow the USSR
Barnes Carr
"The Lenin Plot was a massive embarrassment for the Allies, and they tried to cover it up. The denial continued for years."
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The Battle of Salamis Opened the Door for Ancient Greece’s Golden Age
Fred Zilian
September marked the 2,500th anniversary of the Battle of Salamis, where the Greeks won a surprising naval victory over Persian forces, thwarted their efforts to conquer Greece, and set the stage for the golden age of Athenian civilization.
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Winners, All: A Personal History of Soldiers at War
Ron Steinman
Whether they knew it at the time, the wounded servicemen the author met at the 3rd Field Hospital outside of Saigon were the spirit of America. Winners all, they were not then suckers, losers, fools or mugs.
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Paris, City of Dreams: Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann and the Creation of Paris
Jeff Roquen
Nothing can compare to a visit to Paris, but until international travel resumes, readers can learn how the modern city was built through Mary McAulliffe's book.
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Like Lincoln, Biden at Gettysburg Urges Reunification
Walter G. Moss
Joe Biden's speech evoked the calls for unity and shared purpose made by presidents from Lincoln to FDR to Obama. The coming weeks will tell if voters embrace the message.
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Trump's Opportunities to Thwart Democracy
Alan J. Singer
There are several provisions in the Constitution that could allow Donald Trump, with the help of friendly courts, to hold power against the will of the electorate.
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The Roundup Top Ten for October 9, 2020
The week's top op-eds by historians and about history from around the web.
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