Новости за 17.10.2018

“Most of my recent work,” wrote the acerbic historian and social critic Christopher Lasch, while he was dying of cancer in the early 1990s, “comes back in one way or another to the question of whether democracy has a future.”

Myxolydia Tyler and Johnny Ramey

I remember the Detroit race riots in the summer of 1967 clearly. Newark, N.J., near where I live, was torn apart by racial disturbances that summer, too, as were 150 other American cities. Dominique Morisseau’s play Detroit ’67 is the story of a family caught in the middle of the Detroit riots trying to hold itself together as neighborhoods burn, tanks roll down the streets and young people are gunned down by the police, National Guard and U.S. Army. In the five days of rioting in Detroit that July... Читать дальше...

I was very excited to obtain a copy of this book from a good friend for three reasons. First, he had told me that the authors offered a different, sober take on Jefferson’s Notes. Second, Jefferson’s Notes, when read from cover to cover, tells us much about the mind of the man and I am always intrigued to read scholarly literature on it. Last, like Gish and Klinghard, I too believe that the Notes is greatly misapprehended by most scholars.

Selling encyclopedias in Chicago isn’t a job everyone can say they did as a kid. One of the closing lines salesmen were taught to say was: “If you were to purchase this set, which free gift would you like?” 

Benn Steil is the Director of International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order, which won the 2013 Spears Book Award in Financial History. His latest book, The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War, examines the planning, implementation, and impact of what is often considered the most effective foreign aid program in American history. 

The first demonstration unit of the 22-square-meter “tiny house” on view in the UN Plaza in New York City (summer 2018). 

Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother's sons, we who believe in freedom cannot rest. –Ella Baker

Donald Trump announced “Islam hates us” and then went on to exclude citizens of five Muslim-majority countries from the United States, on the grounds that they are inherently violent and require “extreme vetting.” In the language of critical social theory, Trump “othered” Islam, declaring it intrinsically un-American. It was Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) who introduced a new perspective on the distinction between self and other, arguing that women in her era differentiated themselves with regard to men... Читать дальше...

The following is principally derived from D. M. Giangreco’s speech at the Frank Lloyd Wright Monona Terrace Convention Center, Madison, Wisconsin, sponsored by the Wisconsin Veterans Museum and Department of Veterans Affairs, and other presentations.

“Western Women Wild With Joy Over Colorado’s Election,” journalist and suffragist Caroline Nichols Churchill exclaimed, following the victory for woman suffrage at the polls in Colorado on November 7, 1893. This success made Colorado the first state to enfranchise women through popular referendum, and it happened over a quarter of a century before the achievement of national women’s suffrage in 1920. 

Left to Right: Democrats Felix Frankfurter and Byron White. Republicans Earl Warren, William Brennan, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy , David Souter 

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In the 1960s, gay bars in New York City were illegal. They stayed open because of bold owners, large crowds of patrons and police who, bribed, tipped off owners before a raid. It was a rough, problematic, turbulent world for the bars and their gay patrons.

In Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty, John Boles offers us another biography of Thomas Jefferson. In his brief introduction, he mentions that his aim is to present Jefferson as “politician, party leader, executive; architect, musician, oenophile, gourmand, traveler; inventor, historian, political theorist; land owner, farmer, slaveholder; and son, father, grandfather.” He cautions readers that his portrait is “admittedly sympathetic but critical when appropriate.” (The choice of “sympathetic” is unfortunate... Читать дальше...

National School Lunch week is here (October 15-19), a time for shining the spotlight on this essential program that feeds hungry children. For just a moment, let’s take a step back in time to see what President Harry Truman and the United States Army were doing about school lunches in the fall of 1946. Truman had recently signed the National School Lunch Act, which provided meals for needy children.  This meant free or reduced price school lunches for children of families living in poverty. The... Читать дальше...

The rich made off with the money the GOP predicted would be shared with workers.

Donald Trump is the first candidate to win the Presidency who lacked government or military experience. Only Wendell Willkie before him in 1940, and H. Ross Perot as an Independent in 1992 and 1996, are comparable.

Shakespeare’s wife Anne Hathaway could solve many mysteries about her famous husband.  She could tell us how he got his start as a playwright, how he negotiated work and family, how he grieved for the death of his only son, how he died, and whether or not he was a closet Catholic. She could reveal where he wrote his plays, if he was a family man dutifully traveling back to Stratford, or if he heartlessly abandoned his wife and children to seek fame and fortune.  She could also tell us why her name is on their marriage bond... Читать дальше...

Professor Nell Painter, Artist 

(Detail, John Emerson Photo)

In my history books I have already had my say in clear language and discursive meaning about community. Now what history means to me in images is freedom from coherence, clarity, and collective representation. Nell Painter, Old in Art School

At age 64, Nell Irvin Painter retired from her chaired history professor position at Princeton University. During her distinguished career as a historian and teacher she was acclaimed... Читать дальше...

This goes far toward explaining one of the most troubling facts historians have uncovered about myths: they don’t die. They just go into hibernation, ready to spring back to life when circumstances become favorable. Take Joseph Stalin. He was officially repudiated by the Soviet Union shortly after his death in 1953. His horrors were fully exposed. But on the sixtieth anniversary of his death, who did Russians tell pollsters was the greatest Russian leader in history? Joseph Stalin. It’s not the man Russians were celebrating. Читать дальше...

On the second Monday of October various cities and states celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day. Some locales do so along with Columbus Day, others instead of honoring a man who began the conquest of America’s Indians. Thus, it seems an appropriate occasion to ask whether in ranking our forty-five presidents we are mindful enough of their policies toward Native Americans. 

Four centuries ago, somebody starving in the drought afflicted Elbe region in what is today the Czech Republic, anonymously chiseled onto the stone of the receding river bank a warning. Here, along the river where one day American and Soviet troops would meet on their duel approach to Berlin, a graffito made by unknown hand marks 1616 as the oldest year recorded on one particular “Hunger Stone”, and on that surface there is a memento mori which reads “Wenn du mich sicht, dann weine.” This summer... Читать дальше...

A rendering of the Space Launch System Block 1 (NASA)

NASA’s congressionally-mandated Space Launch System (SLS) was envisioned to take the United States to the Moon and beyond. Thus far, however, it has failed to launch and many are calling for the program to be terminated because of high costs and delays.

SLS replaced Constellation, which was NASA’s manned spaceflight program. It had similar lofty goals but ran into funding problems and was cancelled when President Barack Obama signed the NASA Authorization Act of 2010. Читать дальше...

On October 8, 2018 the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report that an author of previous studies called “quite a shock.” Ninety-one scientists from 40 countries analyzing more than 6,000 scientific studies contributed to the report’s findings. It indicated, as has become increasingly clear, that the world is already experiencing “more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice” and that if we don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions faster than we have ever done before... Читать дальше...