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A view of New York City behind Secretary Gale Norton in a lower Manhattan office space in 2006.

Downsizing Becomes Normal

… apparently unchanged by El Nino this winter. Massive layoffs from American corporations have continued unaffected by … Raytheon and Boeing alone announced cuts totaling more than 30,000 people. The rash of downsizing throughout the 1990s … his father, also an Edison employee, counseled him that the company would provide a secure life. Myers’ forced …
Cover of Zoot Suit The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style by Kathy Peiss.

A Suit, or a Statement?

Review of Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style, by Kathy Peiss (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011)
… as a fashion choice. Peiss asks several key questions in order to understand how youth from many different cultural … of the suit—journalists, ministers, reformers, public officials, and academics who made fashion the subject of … songwriters and animators utilized the suit to make commentary on American life during a time of war. Chapter …
Ronald Reagan toasting at a State Dinner during his presidency.

Behind the Reagan Myths, a Mediocre Presidency

… number of letters that prove he was no dummy. A historian’s complaint, however, is larger than chagrin at the number of … of soils, forests and wildlife habitat. In the late 1930s, Roosevelt gave voice and policy leadership to those who … and instability. Indeed, it was known when he took office, for two national commissions (the 1972 National …
Habana Lions Baseball Players 1946-47

Baseball Without Borders

Review of Havana Hardball: Spring Training, Jackie Robinson, and the Cuban League, by Cesar Brioso (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2015).
… not discrete organizations, but frequently interacted and competed, sharing players and locations, effectively … Jorge Pasquel to build a successful league of his own.  Offering substantially higher salaries than they were being … player, one who was skilled, yet also patient, and willing to avoid confrontations over race.  Although he …
The Beatles arrive in 1964 to meet their new fans in America.

50 Years Ago: the Beatles, Rock, and Race in America

… Beatles made their arrival in the United States. Stepping off an airplane at JFK, the fab four were met with deafening … would help define American life for generations to come. In 1964, the relatively new musical genre of rock and … increasingly forgotten artists. Johnny and the Moondogs (soon to be the Beatles) was one of these bands. After …
An image comparing Communism to Naziism

Historical Analogies and the China Debate

… a very different matter. Unfortunately, bad analogies have come to dominate discussions of China in the American press. … between the imperial and revolutionary eras, and official histories point with pride to the role that Chinese … citizens of China as Hitler was with Germans in the 1930s. The problem is not simply that the use of these …
A crowd of Syrian refugees in the Vienna airport

Road to Europe: The 2015 Migration Crisis

… I teach courses on Eastern Europe, nationalism, migration, communism, the Cold War, among others.   Dr. Robin Judd   … And Theodora Dragostinova, we'd like you to start us off here.   Dr. Theodora Dragostinova  So it depends how you … breaks out in 1939, right, but rather begins in the early 30s. Some even argue in the late 20s, as there are …
Soldiers marching at the Champs Elysee

Recovering the History of the French Far-Right

Review of Assassination in Vichy: Marx Dormoy and the Struggle for the Soul of France , by Gayle K. Brunelle and Annette Finley-Croswhite (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020)
… from their sleep when a bomb exploded, taking the roof off of room #19 and ending the life of Marx Dormoy, former … hardly in question. The mystery was how high the plot went. Commissioner Charles Chenevier and Superintendent Georges … in Vichy redresses this “selective amnesia” about the 1930s and 1940s, and it does so in an eminently readable …
"Glory to victorious Red Army soldier!" by Dmitrii Stakhievich Moor, 1920

The October Revolution in Russia

… points in the Russian capital—railway stations, telegraph offices, and government buildings. By the following evening, … Over the next three years, the Bolsheviks (soon renamed Communists) would have to win power in a bloody civil war … in which it arose—a moment of total war. In the 1930s, Soviet state violence became even more pervasive, as …
The Nuremburg Map of 1524 is the earliest known European visualization of Tenochtitlan

The Fall of Tenochtitlan

… violence. By the end, a few thousand Spaniards under the command of Hernando Cortés fighting alongside many times … at fighting. And the men had incredible resolve.” (Myers, 304) By contrast, another respondent defined the mere idea … for 499 A provocative Mexican film-documentary entitled 499 offers an additional and revealing meditation on what 1521 …
US Marine Corps during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

“Operation Mississippi Freedom”: When State-Sponsored Terrorism Was American

… rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman focuses attention on an era, only four decades ago, … including 35 churches and numerous homes in this state. McComb, Miss., came to be known that summer as the bombing … these estimable goals. Perhaps only when violence fails will we return to the tactics of the Mississippi freedom …

Updating ‘No Child Left Behind:’ Change, or More of the Same

… of significant opposition to its approach. Instead, he has offered a re-packaged "Blueprint" for the law's … of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Weingarten complains that the administration's plans "put 100 percent … experiment that provides health clinics, parenting workshops, and other community services aimed at supporting …
Lt. Cmdr. Raben Talvo (left), and Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Angela Ramirez (right) administer the San Diego Naval Medical Center's first monoclonal antibody (mAb) treatment to a COVID-19-positive patient, January 26, 2021.

The Rhyme of History: What the Black Death tells us about COVID-19’s Aftermath

… to Mark Twain, “it often rhymes.” Indeed, few historical comparisons make more compelling verse than the COVID-19 … pestis , the plague emerged in central Asia in the 1330s, spread west along the Silk Road, and was carried by … This was caused in no small part by the deaths of many officials at all levels of government. Undoubtedly the Black …
Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Restoring Russian Support for the War on Terror

… and Moscow are increasingly frayed, and Russia has become a determined foe of the American Middle East agenda. … program, which lies at the heart of the current standoff between Tehran and Washington, is largely designed and … ideology, while the Russians just want to do business. The good news for Bush is that, since Russian opposition is more …
Official Presidential portrait of Thomas Jefferson (by Rembrandt Peale, 1800).

Jefferson: Founding Father and Connoisseur

… everything he owned — including his slaves — had to be sold off.   It’s hard to square such luxury and self-indulgence with the stern defender of the common man we know from history textbooks. As chief … 50 varieties of peas, 44 varieties of beans, and upwards of 30 varieties of cabbages. It was an organic cornucopia to …
In the 2020 presidential election (held using 2010 census data) Joe Biden received 306 (●) and Donald Trump 232 (●) of the total 538 electoral votes. In Maine (upper-right) and Nebraska (center), the small circled numbers indicate congressional districts. These are the only two states to use a district method for some of their allocated electors, instead of a complete winner-takes-all.

Arguing the Electoral College: Pro

… unlike our own naturally puzzles and frustrates us. Set against our highest cultural and political ideal, that of … them, feared democracy — decisions affecting the public good arrived at through the vote of average men. More … whose members can deliberately and calmly assess the outcome of an election and judge its impact upon the public …
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
… industry representatives, but many environmentalists have come to see nuclear power as key to end world dependence on … power generation.  The Bush era  Energy Policy Act of 2005 offered more than $13 billion to the nuclear industry in … Cost Analysis of Light Water Reactor Power Plants . R-2304-DOE (Santa Monica:  Rand Corporation, June 1978). …
Glass negative of Kaiser Wilhelm.

A New Kind of Anti-Americanism

… As the war against Iraq grinds on, recent polls show that large … trade, encouraging the development of the European common market and paying the lion’s share for NATO, the … this trend in global public opinion, if it is not reversed, will be disastrous for both American policy and the American …

Refugees or Immigrants? The Migration Crisis in Europe in Historical Perspective

… threaten the cultural makeup of Europe due to the alleged incompatibility of the Islamic faith of the majority of new … finally felt at home. European Refugees in the 1930s and 1940s Further predicaments over the status of … waiting to enter Germany, October 2015 ( left ). Pakistani shops and restaurants on Wilmslow Road in Manchester, …
Man Celebrating Repeal Day with a banner that says "Good Old Days Are Back Again!"

Celebrating Repeal with a Drink, Not a Joint

… and Washington, the news media are now brimming with comparisons of alcohol to marijuana prohibition and “lessons … of alcohol and marijuana law that I believe still offers some insight today. In “The Forbidden Fruit and the … as a legal, state-monitored intoxicant. Perhaps the law will again respond to public opinion, as Bonnie and …
Malawi

A Postcard from Livingstonia, Malawi

… which rises just west of Lake Malawi at a height of 3000 feet. View of Lake Malawi from near Livingstonia in … to drive. During the rainy season, the road's stones become very slippery, making transportation difficult. The … sell food and other groceries, not luxuries, and barbershops do a brisk business in hair cutting. A plate …
The Works Progress Administration employed some Spanish-Americans from New Mexico, as seen here, to work in road gangs.

When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America

Review of When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America , by Ira Katznelson (W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2005), preface, appendix, index, 238 pp.
… programs to deal with welfare, work, and war in the 1930s and 1940s, they deliberately excluded or treated … economic relief during the New Deal. Although many federal officials understood that black sharecroppers were the … When Affirmative Action Was White concludes with the recommendation that contemporary American policymakers deal …
Immigrant laborers, part of the Bracero program

Immigrant Deportations Today and the Continuing Legacy of "Operation Wetback"

… U.S. Border Patrol ( pictured above  in 1924 when it was officially created) carried out Operation Wetback to respond … less interest in actual immigrants who might settle and become part of the citizenry. The program thus conditioned … is unlikely in this midterm election year, politicians will want to take a more comprehensive historical view of …