Forgetting vs. Overcoming: Abuses of History and the 1619 Project
The 1619 Project is, strangely, a history project that encourages forgetting as much as it remembers.
Robert C. Thornett
· 15 min read
History
A collection of 341 posts
Heidegger’s Downfall
Richard Wolin’s reappraisal of Martin Heidegger offers both original contributions and a synthesis of critical scholarship. The result is a timely work of enduring importance.
Jeffrey Herf
· 18 min read
A Mummy by Any Other Name
A century after the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, curators bent on ‘decolonizing’ history have become needlessly skittish about the M-word.
Steven Tucker
· 15 min read
‘Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad’—A Review
It wasn’t lost on black soldiers that they were being called upon to liberate oppressed peoples overseas, even as they faced prejudice in the United States.
Tim Cook
· 9 min read
Colonialism and Its Discontents
Oxford ethicist Nigel Biggar’s controversial reassessment of Britain’s imperial record has reignited an important academic quarrel over the meaning and legacy of empire.
John Lloyd
· 16 min read
America’s Forgotten Crisis
A terrific new account of America’s social and political turmoil during the 1910s and ’20s provides some much-needed perspective on the problems afflicting the country today.
Michael J. Totten
· 14 min read
The Philadelphia Experiments
How an enterprising doctor, an elite university, and negligent public officials turned a city prison system into the largest human research factory in America.
Allen M. Hornblum
· 26 min read
Fukuyama’s Victory
Liberal democracy has again proved itself capable of overcoming its internal challenges and contradictions.
Matt Johnson
· 22 min read
Misremembering the Korean War
The profound difference in quality of life on opposing sides of the 38th parallel today offers a rebuke to those who portray the US-led intervention in Korea as immoral or futile.
Niranjan Shankar
· 15 min read
How New Orleans Became a Hive of JFK Conspiracism
Jim Garrison’s theory of the presidential assassination was based on false evidence and homophobic paranoia. Yet many still believe he was right.
Michel Jacques Gagné
· 15 min read
Ken Kesey and the Rush to Deinstitutionalization
Whatever the literary strengths of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the book has done much to harm both the mentally ill and their communities.
Stephen Eide
· 11 min read
Benito Mussolini and the Fascist Love Affair with Soccer
Embracing a sport that combines nationalism, mass spectacle, and physical refinement, Il Duce set out to make Italy a World Cup champion.
Luciano Wernicke
· 8 min read
FDR and the Holocaust
A widely praised new series by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein distorts the historical record to rehabilitate a flawed US president.
Ronald Radosh
· 26 min read
In the Shadow of the Mushroom Cloud
Biden, Putin, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
Robin Ashenden
· 15 min read
A Strange and Brutal Country
Adam Curtis’s new BBC series provides a unique insight into Russia’s late-twentieth-century collapse.
Christopher J. Snowdon
· 7 min read