Note: The 80-minute PBS documentary The Movement and the Madman, which premiered last night (March 28) showing the influence of the Vietnam antiwar movement on Nixon's Vietnam policy, is available via livestream through April 27. Also, Vietnam War historian Chris Appy is interviewed on Jon Wiener's podcast about the events depicted in the documentary.
Links to Recent Articles of Interest
By Eric Foner, New York Review of Books, April 6 issue
A vivid review essay on Margaret Burnham's history of racial violence in the long decades that followed Reconstruction, By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow's Legal Executioners (Norton, 2022). The author is a professor emeritus of history at Columbia University.
By Branco Marcetic, Responsible Statecraft, posted March 23
Uses classified US diplomatic cables exposed by Wikileaks to argue that Putin “had spent significant political capital on an attempt at rapprochement with George W. Bush’s administration,” but the Iraq invasion chilled relations greatly. The author is a staff writer for Jacobin magazine.
By Lara Friedenfelds, Nursing Clio, posted March 22
A review essay on Proving Pregnancy: Gender, Law, and Medical Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century America by Felicity Turner (U. of North Carolina Press, 2022). The author is a historian of women's health, reproduction and parenting, with a PhD in the history of science from Harvard University.
By Julia Boechat Machado and Ruben Zeeman, History New Network, posted March 19
Finds a pattern in India under Modi, Brazil under former president Bolsonaro, and the Philippines under Marcos Jr., with recent Florida developments as a warning signal. Julia Boechat Machado is a PhD candidate in comparative history at the Central European University in Vienna and Ruben Zeeman is the co-editor of the Network of Concerned Historians.
By Stephen Wertheim, Foreign Affairs, posted March 17
Traces the Iraq invasion to a determination, advanced prominently in the 1990s and still a consensus in policymaking circles, that the US must be unchallenged in world affairs. The author is a historian who wrote Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S.Global Supremacy (Harvard University Press, 2020).
By Jacob Bruggeman, Chronicle of Higher Education, posted March 10
Notes on January's annual convention of the American Historical
Association against the background of a declining job market in academic history. The author is a PhD candidate in history at Johns Hopkins University.
By Michael Kazin, Dissent, posted March 7
” If American leftists take seriously their commitment to self-rule and loathing of foreign aggression, they should shed their ambivalence about supporting Ukraine.” The author teaches history at Georgetown University and is co-editor of Dissent magazine.
By Jonathan Friedman and Amy Werbel, The Hill, posted March 3
On the 1873 anti-“obscenity” law under whose reign “millions of books, newspapers, magazines, prints, photographs and circulars were burned under court order.” Jonathan Friedman is on the staff of PEN America; Amy Werbel is the author of Lust on Trial: Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of Anthony Comstock (Columbia University Press, 2018).
By Phyllis Bennis, In These Times, posted March 1
“Sanctions are an instrument of war, not an alternative to it.” Cites examples from recent history to argue that economic sanctions such as those on Syria punish the poor in the targeted nations without harming the rulers. The author is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.
By Renate Bridenthal, Geopoliticaleconomy, posted February 28
A nuanced survey of conflicting interests in the Arctic Ocean as it expands with global warming. “Its warming is turning up the geopolitical heat in the polar region, bringing to mind an old adage: “What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic.” The author is a professor emeritus of history at Brooklyn College.
Interview of Taras Bilous by Stephen R. Shalom, Commons, posted February 16
A wide-ranging interview analyzing the sometimes exaggerated extent of popular support and political power for extreme-right groups in Ukraine.Taras Bilous is a Ukrainian historian and an editor of Commons: Journal of Social Criticism and currently serving in the Ukrainian army. Stephen R. Shalom is an editor of New Politics magazine.
Thanks to Mara Dodge, Rusti Eisenberg, and an anonymous reader for suggesting articles included in the above list. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.