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Nixon shakes hands with Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

Nixon and China, Bush and Cuba?

… Fidel Castro is not exactly welcoming the new president of the United States with open … he hoped Bush “is not as stupid as he seems.” But there is one way that Bush could probably improve his image, not only … Cuba? Stephen A. Allen is a doctoral candidate in the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame and a …
 SPLM rally in Southern Sudan, 2010. (Image by U.S. Institute of Peace)

Tribal Militias in Sudan

… infrastructure of Sudan ’s capital city, Khartoum.  On one level, the war began because SAF leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemeti, … to land, resources, and government services dependent on one’s ethnic identity. The British viewed Sudan as …
Sylvester I and Constantine in a 1247 fresco.

Top Ten Origins: Popes Before 1500

… The early version was small (around 30 clerics) and comprised only of “cardinal priests” who served parishes … historical evidence, and most scholars think that Peter died somewhere far from Rome, probably never having even … pope and “anti-pope” pair.  As we all know, not everyone accepts the outcome of an election, including the popes. …
Undated photo of the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany.

Democracy-Building Will Be Tougher This Time

… and factional and ethnic rebellions since the mid-1930s. No one there can remember an extended period of guaranteed … had literate, talented, industrially and technologically competent populations, a huge help in building a modern … in a way we assume Iraq will not be, making them more prone to accept the Allies’ democratic program. The Japanese …
A Nuclear Power Plant in the Untied Kingdom against a blue sky.

How Green Is the Atom?

The Past–and Future–of Nuclear Energy in the United States
… contended that nuclear power was a green technology and one of the most promising ways to slow global warming … industry representatives, but many environmentalists have come to see nuclear power as key to end world dependence on … advantage in world markets. ADVANCE will provide huge subsidies in the effort to rejuvenate the U.S. industry. That …
School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America's Favorite Welfare Program, by Susan Levine Book Cover

Playing Politics with Our Children's Health

Review of School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America's Favorite Welfare Program, by Susan Levine (Princeton University Press, 2008)
… The result, according to Goldstein: "I think the healthy diet is in jeopardy." In this context, historian Susan … early twentieth century to the present, highlighting the complex interaction of politics, economics, nutrition, and … shifts the lens to school lunches, which she describes as "one of the nation's most popular social welfare programs." …
Generals Eisenhower and Patton at the Ohrdruf Concentration Camp

On the Liberation of the Concentration Camps

… the end of World War II in Europe. This year as in previous ones, Europeans commemorated VE (Victory in Europe) Day with a combination … Allied forces began liberating the concentration camps. Soldiers of the Soviet Union’s Red Army were actually the first … Milestones …
An electron microscopic image of a thin section of SARS-CoV within the cytoplasm of an infected cell, showing the spherical particles and cross-sections through the viral nucleocapsid.

Could SARS Set off Another Great Pandemic?

… threat to public health: the specter of a pandemic, and the complacent American response. The so-called "Spanish" flu … million people around the world, more than the number who died in World War I battles. In the United States it killed … 20 to 29. And its speed! A person would feel perfectly fine one day, have a little cough the next. Two days later the …
President Eisenhower in Holland in 1951.

Will the United States Start a New Nuclear Arms Race?

… massive arms race. The U.S. government conducted special studies to see how much damage Soviet atomic bombs could inflict on America. The results were appalling. One study showed 65 percent of the U.S. population either … Bush faces the prospect of North Korea or even Iran becoming a nuclear power. China, India, Pakistan, Great …
Portrait of Galileo Galilei by Justus Sustermans

400 Years Ago the Catholic Church Prohibited Copernicanism

What lessons can be learned from the thought and actions of Galileo, who became the “Father of Modern Science”?
… continues to our day. Do these Church actions prove the incompatibility between science and religion? What lessons can … attracted few followers. At first, Galileo himself was not one of them, although he was interested because his new … model (bottom) Galileo supported. In February-March 1615, one Dominican friar filed a written complaint against him, …
President Lyndon B. Johnson visiting American troops in Vietnam in 1966.

The Ambiguities of “Cut and Run”

… accusations against the Bush administration’s Democratic opponents ought to be answered. What one person sees as “cut … that Eisenhower did the responsible thing when he quickly completed the truce negotiations that ended the fighting in … that almost half the 58,000 Americans killed in Vietnam died during Nixon’s presidency. The real mistake during what …
UNR postcard (ca. 1918), Ukrainians face invading Russia. Caption: “Our enemies die like the dew in the sun and we brothers will rule in our turn.” From the author’s collection.

Ukrainian Independence: From Versailles 1 to Versailles 2

… Ukrainian exhaustion, and overwhelming Bolshevik military superiority resulted in the final consolidation of the … State with himself as Hetman. Skoropadsky abdicated one month after Germany’s surrender in November 1918.  His … were war-weary, and saw no Entente troops or aid forthcoming.  Ukraine’s signing the Treaty was something the …
Djiboutian workers fill bags with wheat destined for Ethiopia, provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), at the Port of Djibouti, Africa, Jan. 7, 2013.

The Birth and Death of USAID

… in the beginning of 2025, still working in the name of the commitment that President John F. Kennedy had made in 1961 … Belief in the transforming power of “development” was one of the defining characteristics of the 20th century. It … was a problem; others argued that the agricultural subsidies affluent nations paid their famers negated the value of …
"The Magnet Citizenship" March 1917 cartoon by Henry Mayer - Moving Picture Weekly (1915-1920)

U.S. Citizenship Is Based on Principles, Not Heritage

… American values. "Be Americans First," he beseeches his audiences, meaning be "western."   But Tancredo misunderstands … was founded on loyalty to the state as determined by one's birthplace (jus soli), and descent (jus sanguinis). … would contribute to the "wealth and strength of the community."    Similarly, John Laurance of New York declared …
Ivan Aivazovsky, a Native of Feodosia, Crimea, is known as one of Russia's greatest painters, and one of the world's best at seascapes. The Battle of Sinop (Russian and Turkish Navies), 1853

Top Ten Origins: Stories from Crimea

… The Crimea that most people have come to know is a peninsula occupied by Russian forces, ostensibly annexed to the Russian Federation, and one epicenter of an international conflict over Ukraine that … Crimea to Russia, as the ancient site where, according to medieval Russian documents, Prince Vladimir “the Baptist” …

Savage Gladiators vs. Civilized Amateurs: Rome and Athens in American Sports Culture

… looked upon us as modern-day gladiators.” Athens on the one hand. Rome on the other. We might ask why references to … In fact, as surprising as it may be to sports watchers and commentators, how Americans talk about sports today is a … their home city-states. Specialized, intensive training and diet were also essential in order to win large or …
John D. Rockefeller in 1914.

Bill Gates — Another Rockefeller or Another Ford?

… has ordered Microsoft broken in two, and the appeal has gone to the Supreme Court. Why is Microsoft in so much … Americans have hated political and economic bullies. "Free competition" has always been our rallying cry and the … built the world's greatest economy–and sued 40 "bad" ones that preyed on smaller fry. The most notorious was the …
Cover of Sexual Injustice Supreme Court Decisions from Griswold to Roe by Marc Stein.

The Sexual Revolution that Wasn’t Quite

Review of Sexual Injustice: Supreme Court Decisions from Griswold to Roe, by Marc Stein (University of North Carolina Press)
… and 1970s, the height of the sexual revolution and during one of the most progressive periods in the Court's history.  Stein brings a fresh perspective to the studied and landmark decisions Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), … Instead, the holding is evidence of a much more tenuous commitment to a liberal sexually revolutionizing agenda.  …
President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967.

How to Intervene and Get Out

… Vietnam analogy. That war haunts both supporters and opponents of the 2003 U.S. invasion, and more so as the … the Dominican capital, to stop what it believed was a communist insurgency there. The action was heavily … for the aftermath than many said were needed. U.S. soldiers soon spread themselves too thin. It took them more …
Close-up of the mural commemorating works of A.J. Muste on the War Resisters League Building in New York, New York.

"There Is No Way to Peace, Peace Is the Way": A.J. Muste and American Radical Pacifism

Review of American Gandhi: A.J. Muste and the History of Radicalism in the Twentieth Century, by Leilah Danielson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)
… and there was always a world that needed redeeming. When he died ten years later, scores of mourners, from New York to Tanzania to Hanoi, hailed the loss of one of the brightest minds and most tireless spirits that … nonconformist left. Historian Leilah Danielson attempts to complete the work that Muste did not. It is most useful to …