Новости за 02.12.2018

November 1951 nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site, from Operation Buster, with a yield of 21 kilotons. It was the first U.S. nuclear field exercise conducted on land; troops shown are 6 mi (9.7 km) from the blast.

Sometime in 1779, in the midst of that era of trans-Atlantic revolutions that marked the Age of Reason, an apocryphal weaver named Ned Ludd supposedly took a hammer to two stocking frames in a textile factory near Leicester, smashing to bits that simple machinery which threatened his livelihood with the promise of expedient and profitable mechanization. Ludd wasn’t real, yet the popularity of the character demonstrated something about the inequities that defined the lives of English workers, and the threat that technology posed to them. Читать дальше...

Holiday Inn at Paper Mill - Photo by Jerry Dalia

The holidays begin on Thanksgiving weekend and extend through New Year’s day (in department stores they start Jan. 2 and extend through the next January 1) This year the holidays got off to a booming start with a magical production of Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn, a musical based on the 1942 Bing Crosby movie that opened last night at the Paper Mill Playhouse, in Millburn, N.J. 

I think just about everybody has seen the movie, that co-stars dancing king Fred Astaire, on television. Читать дальше...

On Wednesday morning, November 9, 1994, Governor Pete Wilson stood before a jostling crowd of TV cameras in a downtown Los Angeles hotel. Smiling and buoyant after his surprisingly large re-election victory the night before, he held up an executive order he had just signed. The directive implemented the first stages of newly passed Proposition 187: it cut off prenatal care and nursing home services to undocumented immigrants. 

Crystal A. deGregory, Ph.D. is the inaugural director of the Atwood Institute for Race, Education, and the Democratic Ideal at Kentucky State University, where she is an associate professor of history. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the historic Fisk University, she earned master’s and doctoral degrees in history from Vanderbilt University, and holds an M.Ed. in curriculum and instruction from Tennessee State University. 

It is hard to fly in the face of history. Even harder when you are dealing with historical icons. We like to believe in our historical myths and are loathe to rethink what we have believed most of our lives. Miss O’Learys cow probably did not really start the Chicago fire and Elliott Ness and the Untouchables were not the men who brought Al Capone to justice. And it wasn’t the Wright Brothers who cracked the code of human flight, but one brother, Wilbur Wright, who is the man primarily responsible... Читать дальше...

Brian Glyn Williams speaking to the Army’s 3rd Legal Operations Detachment about his book The Last Warlord.

Thomas Jefferson was one of the most erudite men of his time. His passion for learning, perhaps obsessive, was matchless and what he learned he learned chiefly through books. Why? First, when at Monticello, he was far from the sort of society of cultured persons that he could readily find, for instance, in the salons of Paris. Thus, he had no choice but to turn to books. Second, though he traveled in social settings while engaged for four decades in legal and political affairs, Jefferson was much more comfortable in the quiet of solitude... Читать дальше...

John Hickenlooper, Stephen Bullock, Jay Inslee and Gavin Newsom

As the 2020 presidential campaign commences now that the midterm elections of 2018 are over, four governors from western states may decide to compete for the Democratic nomination, and could play a major role. One is leaving office and has given evidence of interest in running; two others are still in office and have gained notice for their skills as governors; and one is about to enter office with at least long range presidential ambitions. Читать дальше...

Container cranes at Shipping Port - By Marqueed at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0

Paul Manafort and Howard Hunt

If matters were not so serious, one would think that current events involving Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi and Julian Assange are nothing but a bad redux of Watergate and the events of January 1973.

The script has been updated but the tactics remain the same. In January 1973, the Watergate burglars faced the prospect of serving long prison terms for crimes involving the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters. In 2018, alleged... Читать дальше...

Strange. A White House never shy about proclaiming its achievements, real or imagined, has been uncharacteristically reluctant to inform the world about one of its major successes:  Easing the hostility between China and Japan.

If there was one demographic group that blunted the force of the “blue wave” in this month’s midterm elections, it was rural white voters. Even as Republicans lost control of the suburban areas that had been their strongholds in the 1980s and 1990s, Republicans extended their hold over rural America. The GOP is now on the verge of uniting nearly all rural white voters into a single party – which has never happened before. 

Michael Beschloss has written a highly readable, but deeply flawed account of our nation’s war-making presidents. The book follows the traditional, Euro-centric narrative of American history, emphasizing the noble motives of our 19th century Presidents and ignoring the major impact of African slavery and territorial expansion on our nation’s history. Becshloss may have written a bestseller, but he has missed an opportunity to educate readers about the importance of racism in forming our nation’s early foreign and domestic policies. Читать дальше...

"The discipline of history in Africa is facing a crisis in that it is attracting fewer and fewer students."

Title page of the 1828 first edition of the American Dictionary of the English Language featuring an engraving of Webster - By Cullen328 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

Neo-Confederate pamphlet on left. Loewen book on right. 

James W. Loewen is a sociologist.  The New Press has just brought out new paperbacks of Loewen's bestseller, Lies My Teacher Told Me, and Sundown Towns, about places that were/are all-white on purpose. 

In 2016 I wrote here about Clyde Wilson’s scurrilous neo-Confederate pamphlet, “Lies My Teacher Told Me: The True History of the War for Southern Independence.” It is a 38-page pamphlet that mostly reprints an article he wrote... Читать дальше...

For the presidential campaign of 2020 the nation is likely to see up to 12 former or sitting mayors of cities possibly competing for the Democratic presidential nomination. A total of nine former mayors, and three sitting mayors are all said to be interested in running for the presidency.

It feels incredibly satisfying. When academic historians such as Princeton’s Kevin Kruse dismantle the partisan misstatements of pundits like Dinesh D’Souza, it gives the rest of us a glimmer of hope. In the process, though, historians should heed two lessons from another culture-war battleground. 

An October 2018 report, Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape, indicated that poor national leadership and our political polarization were main concerns. Our recent midterm election offers little hope that the two problems will diminish. Thus, we ask ourselves, “What type of political leadership is now needed? Who might furnish it? Trump supporters might answer Trumpian and Trump. But most of us seek a better answer. 

Related Link How George H. W. Bush Is Being Remembered

While Jeb Bush seems to be the hottest name in (Republican) town and George W. Bush attracts media headlines with his paintings of animals and foreign leaders, George H. W. Bush – America's 41st president - almost seems to have been forgotten. Recently, however, the limelight has shifted and more than two decades after leaving the White House and twenty-five years after his inauguration, the spotlight is back on George Herbert Walker Bush. Читать дальше...