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Cover of Trotsky A Biography by Robert Service.

Trotsky: A Biography

Review of Trotsky: A Biography, by Robert Service (Cambridge, MA, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009)
… humane. Robert Service, professor of Russian History at Oxford University, counters such speculative thinking with his new biography on Trotsky. Coming after his previous biographies on Lenin and Stalin, … Byulleten oppozitsii and founded the Fourth International. Free from the constraints of government, Trotsky could …
The Ganden Monastery in Lhasa was one of the many victims of bombing during the 1956 uprising. The destruction caused to the monastery is still visible in the ruins.

The Seventeen Point Agreement: China’s Occupation of Tibet

… Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" was signed. This … signed between the PRC and a minority people and is part of communist China’s larger nation-building process in its … Tibetans have self-immolated since 2009, with the latest act by Yonten, a 24-year-old former monk from Kirti …
President Lyndon B. Johnson giving a speech about the Voting Rights Act with a statute of President Abraham Lincoln in the background.

The Republican Party and African-Americans: The Real History

… and presidential candidate George W. Bush won kudos for his gutsy appeals to black voters. Alluding to a proud … to give black men full citizenship. For that much, Bush and company can claim a worthy lineage. But as early as 1876 — … be a courageous act indeed. Historian David Greenberg is a visiting scholar at the American Academy of Arts and …
Mourners picket after the Triangle fire. Their signs, hung with black crepe, accuse shop owners of graft, locked doors, and managing workers in fire traps.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

… that way. If bosses and politicians had not put profits before people, the fire might not have happened, or if it did, … watching scores of young women and several young men die, combined with the awful realization that this tragedy could … Investigating Commission, which travelled around the state visiting factories, talking with workers and observing …

Yemen: A Civil War Centuries in the Making

… Yemen’s internationally recognized government is sitting comfortably in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 900 miles away from … in yet another civil war in 1994. When Yemen held its first free elections in 1993, the Yemen Socialist Party, led by …
Cover of A Short History of Celebrity by Fred Inglis.

A Short History of Celebrity

Review of A Short History of Celebrity, by Fred Inglis (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2010)
… Anyone unfortunate enough to have watched more than a modest portion … of intense familiarity with distance.  This is the "compound" that makes the celebrity sacred in modern society: … "stars to steer by"—is better served by his tendency toward free-ranging commentary.  The best celebrities, he insists, …
Black Friday shoppers in the morning at Walmart store in Durham, North Carolina.

Is Retailing’s Death Star Vulnerable After All?

… to Christmas, head over to the local Wal-Mart. The company’s promise of “everyday low prices” is music to the ears of every shopper. For better or worse, we’re living in a Wal-Mart World. The … a place where people would want to work — and love to visit again. Bob Batchelor is the author of "The 1900s" …
Mural in Guernica based on the Picasso painting. 

Guernica and the Horrors of Modern War

… Guernica was not the first strategically insignificant, non-combatant town ever to be targeted for aerial bombardment, its destruction by the Nazi Condor … of war itself, and of the atrocities that continue to be visited upon civilian populations in the form of aerial …
Crowd with sign: "Black Caucus for Chisholm"

"Earn Your Spurs" (Prologued, Season 1, Episode 7)

… ticket, join us as we trace the bumpy road of women running for elected office.  … as president of the NCN,W the organization deepened its commitment to the Civil Rights Movement, with Height joining … of downtown Dayton, which drew national attention and visits from both Ohio senators and President Trump. While …
Ukrainian refugees board a train in Lviv, February 2022.

West Ukraine’s War Stories: A New Chapter?

… played an outsized role in the 20 th century struggles for control of eastern Europe.  It was here that the … this region has also been central to Ukraine’s complex journey to define itself. In the Soviet era and in … of the war. Yet unlike in the Soviet era, there is more freedom to grapple with what this diversity means now, and …
President George Bush signing deregulation papers with gas company employees looking on

Texas, Enron, and Energy Monopolies

… least some of the blame can go to the now-disgraced energy company, Enron, and its misuse of long-held American … slight of hand that ruined the company in 2001. But before that point, both Ken Lay and Enron were at the vanguard … Bill 7 on June 18, 1999. Noting that Texas was just the latest state to push for deregulation, one Enron Business …
Team photo of a soccer team

The Politics of International Sport

… in putting the nation on display on the global stage. And coming up, Brazil : about to host to the 2014 World Cup and … Patrick Potyondy  Welcome to History Talk , the history podcast for everyone … game in once a year. So that people on the East Coast, freezing to death on New Year's Day, would look at all of …
Dick Cheney in 2003.

The Vice President: Heir Apparent in American Politics

… with government was so tenuous that he saw the White House for the first time on a tour. The term "throttlebottom" thus passed into the language to refer to someone with no competence or apparent purpose. It turns out, however, that … campaign financing reforms, such as strict spending limits, free television time, and the limiting of campaigning to six …
A COVID-19 antigen testing center in Warora, Maharashtra, India.

The Deep Roots of India’s COVID-19 Crisis

… of COVID-19, 2020. There are plenty of immediate reasons for this heartbreaking tragedy, and chief among them is a … patients’ access to lifesaving medical assistance, all compounded by the emergence of a new variant that may be … to improve these grim statistics in an independent India free from British rule, the Indian government continued the …
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963.

Spring Marches on Washington

For good or ill, future generations will look to this … reputation by ordering his men to attack their former comrades in arms with tear gas and riot weapons and burn … that marchers are exercising constitutional rights of free assembly, petition and speech. We should remember that …
Engraving of Robespierre.

The New Species of Terrorism

… With the horrific assault of Sept. 11, “terrorism” has become the new American watchword and scourge. Yet as George … (1793-94), when Robespierre’s Jacobins executed, often for flimsy reasons, some 12,000 people deemed enemies of the … expect it to strike again. Historian David Greenberg is a visiting scholar at the American Academy of Arts and …
The words "Equal Justice Under Law" which are inscribed on the front of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.

The Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment

… acted, and Secretary of State William Henry Seward formally announced the ratification on July 28. It was a … too much about it." (Library of Congress) But that did not come to pass. The “no state shall” language was ideally … and others formed civil liberties organizations to demand freedom of speech and the press. Civil libertarians called …
Review of Ho Chi Minh: A Biography, by Pierre Brocheux (translation by Claire Duiker) Book Cover

Ho Chi Minh: A Biography

Review of Ho Chi Minh: A Biography, by Pierre Brocheux (translation by Claire Duiker) (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
… – "This book is dedicated to the idealists of the world, for whom history always ends in disappointment." The ironic … at the fringes of European and Asian societies, Ho's complex experiences have been canonized at home and abroad, … acumen propelled him to the forefront of the Vietnamese freedom struggle over the course of his lifetime, even while …
Pullman Strike illustration

Top Ten Origins: American Workers and Strikes

… Socialist Congress meeting in Paris in July 1899. The comrades set the date in solidarity with organized workers … Labor had scheduled the upcoming May 1 to initiate a drive for the eight-hour day. The date stuck for workers of the … the state was determined to guarantee capital untrammeled freedom to abuse workers, Debs repeatedly said, then the …

Viewpoint Iran: The Past and Present of the U.S.-Iran Standoff

… partnership.” Those conciliatory words, however, were accompanied on both sides with qualifications, skepticism, and … by Mohammad Mosaddeq , a veteran politician committed to freeing Iran from imperial domination. As premier, Mosaddeq … 2012 Academy-Award-winning film Argo is the most recent revisiting of these events in American culture.) Almost …
Three 10th Mountain Division Ski troopers above Camp Hale in the Pando Valley, Colorado in February, 1944.

Skis, Samba, and Smoking Snakes: An Unlikely World War II Partnership

What happened when glacier-goggled American ski troops and samba-loving Brazilian soldiers fought side-by-side halfway across the world?
… immersing its recruits in the art of mountain warfare before its opportunity came to fight during  World War II . … in a stalemate with Axis troops north of Rome. With a commanding view of the narrow approach to the Po River … Center, for her assistance and insight during the author’s visit. Suggestions for Further Reading: Ernest Fischer Jr.,  …
Celebrations for Jamaican Independence, 2012.

Jamaican Independence

… in May 1655 ended rather unsuccessfully and his plan for the Western Design overwhelmingly failed, Jamaica was … Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and African Communities League in Kingston in 1914. Though Garvey was … world. Indebted as well to Haiti , the world’s first free Black republic in the Western Hemisphere, which …
Chartwell, the country estate of Winston Churchill

By Invitation Only

Review of The Long Weekend: Life in the English Country House, 1918-1939, by Adrian Tinniswood New York: Basic Books, 2016
… The popular hit Downton Abbey chronicled this transformation in the struggles of the Crawley family to manage … instance, crossed the Atlantic and settled in England, becoming members of the English aristocracy and elite British … giving the majority of country estate owners a free pass. Besides this misgiving, The Long Weekend brings …

Private Matter or Public Crisis? Defining and Responding to Domestic Violence

… program, which is rarely used in domestic assault cases, for first-time offenders that would clear him of all charges … the elevator. (Photo Credit, AP)  In late July 2014, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell also handed Rice a two game … a provision that stated, “Everie marryed woeman shall be free from bodilie correction or stripes by her husband, …