Historians in the News

This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used.

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  1/23/20
  

  What Happens When You Give Students Control of the Syllabus?

  Featuring Leslie Lindenauer, a history professor at Western Connecticut State University.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/24/20
  

  A Civil War-era ‘witch bottle’ may have been found on a Virginia highway, archaeologists say

  Witch bottles can be traced to the East Anglia region of England in the late Middle Ages.

• 
• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  1/27/20
  

  The Future of the Academy at the Association of American Colleges and Universities

  At the annual meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, academics discussed how to rethink the academy and how to separate it from the university. Features quotes from Johann Neem, chair of the history department at Western Washington University.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  1/21/20
  

  The Way We Write History Has Changed

  by Alexis C. Madrigal

  A deep dive into an archive will never be the same.

• 
• SOURCE: AHA Perspectives on History
  1/21/20
  

  Rethinking How We Train Historians

  by Rita Chin

  What if we designed a graduate course that accounted for the conditions of the job market and history as a discipline? What if we taught students how to undertake the work of historical scholarship in a collaborative manner that more closely resembles the way labor is organized in today’s society, both inside and outside of academia?

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  1/6/20
  

  Building a digital archive for decaying paper documents, preserving centuries of records about enslaved people

  by Daniel Genkins

  Paper archives are vulnerable to flooding, humidity, insects, and rodents, among other threats. Political instability can cut off money used to maintain archives and institutional neglect can transform precious records into moldy rubbish.

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  1/20/20
  

  The Radical Lives of Abolitionists

  by Britt Rusert

  History has tended to sanitize the lives of abolitionists, many of whom were involved in other radical movements as well, including Free Love, which promoted women’s independence and an end to traditional marriage. A review of Holly Jackson's American Radicals: How Nineteenth-Century Protest Shaped the Nation.

• 
• SOURCE: National Security Archive
  1/21/20
  

  National Security Archive Releases USCYBERCOM documents which shed new light on the campaign to counter ISIS in cyberspace

  by Michael Martelle

  New FOIA documents show challenges in operational synchronization, deconfliction, and inter-agency coordination.

• 
• SOURCE: NJ.com
  1/19/20
  

  Historian Jonathan Holloway will be named as Rutgers first black president

  A historian specializing in African American studies, Holloway received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University, where he played football with New Jersey U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, according to his official Northwestern University biography.

• 
• SOURCE: New Yorker
  1/21/20
  

  The Twitterstorians Trying to De-Trumpify American History

  In a time when President Trump and his followers are known for spreading dubious versions of American history, historians are taking to Twitter to set the record straight.

• 
• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  1/17/20
  

  African Americans and Africa: A New Book about Black America’s Relationship with the Continent

   An interview with author Nemata Blyden about her latest book. 

• 
• SOURCE: AHA
  1/19/20
  

  AHA Sends Letter to NARA Archivist about Altered Women's March Photo

  The AHA sent the following letter to the Archivist of the United States objecting to the alteration of a photograph on exhibition and praising NARA staff for acknowledging this serious lapse in judgement.

• 
• SOURCE: AP
  1/18/20
  

  Prohibition began 100 years ago, and its legacy remains

  Featuring Harvard history professor Lisa McGirr, whose 2015 book “The War on Alcohol” examines Prohibition’s political and social repercussions.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/17/20
  

  Think universities are making lots of money from inventions? Think again.

  Featuring the research of Marc Levine, an emeritus professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.

• 
• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  1/10/20
  

  AHA Encourages History Departments to Provide Full Library Access to Alumni and to Unaffiliated Historians in their Regions

  by James Grossman and Becky Nicolaides

  The AHA encourages history departments to provide full library access to their own scholar alumni and to unaffiliated historians in their regions.

• 
• SOURCE: World Socialist Web Site
  1/15/20
  

  Clayborne Carson Interviewed by World Socialist Web Site on 1619 Project

  The profesor of history at Stanford University is the latest historian to be interviewed by the webiste about the 1619 Project. 

• 
• SOURCE: BBC History Extra
  1/14/20
  

  “A staggering tour de force – but an opportunity missed”: a historian’s review of the film 1917

  by Jeremy Banning

  How does 1917 deal with the realities of war and what does it show about the real events of 1917 – the retreat by German forces and life in the trenches? 

• 
• SOURCE: NY Journal of Books
  Accessed 1/16/20
  

  NY Journal of Books Reviews Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy

  "David Zucchino cuts through a century of propaganda, myth, and big white lies to unmask the stunning history of the Wilmington coup, its origins in the political climate of the era, and its far-reaching implications for North Carolina and the entire South in the decades that followed."

• 
• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  1/15/20
  

  AHA Enrollment Study Finds History Enrollments Hold Study as Department Efforts Intensify

  by Julia Brookins and Emily Swafford

  For the past several years, the AHA has conducted an optional annual enrollments survey of history departments.

• 
• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  1/9/20
  

  National Museum of American History Marks 2020 as “Year of the Woman”

  Celebrates 100th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage With Exhibitions