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: The Bulwark
  4/6/2020
  

  'America First' and the Coronavirus

  The pandemic makes a mockery of Trump’s core principle.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/5/2020
  

  The Worst President. Ever.

  Trump's handling of the coronavirus crisis has cemented him as the worst president in American history, argues historian Max Boot.

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  4/5/2020
  

  A Historian Looks Ahead At A Transformed Post-Pandemic World

  It's changing the way we work, we live, we communicate, what we expect from our governments. NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with Yuval Noah Harari about what happens once COVID-19 is beaten.

• 
• SOURCE: The Times
  4/6/2020
  

  If You Thought Byron Was Bad You Should Have Met His Family

  The scandal-prone poet came from a family mired in cuckoldry, cowardice and killing.

• 
• SOURCE: Observer
  4/5/2020
  

  An Art History Professor’s Tips for Taking Your Kids on a World Tour—From Home

  Many of the world's greatest landmarks and artworks are just a click away.

• 
• SOURCE: BBC
  4/5/2020
  

  Madam CJ Walker: 'An Inspiration to Us All'

  A new Netflix series tells the story of Madam CJ Walker - a trail-blazing black female entrepreneur in the early 20th century.

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  4/6/2020
  

  What Moms Always Knew About Working From Home

  The obsession with office “face time” hurts women. When the coronavirus pandemic is behind us, let’s not return to it.

• 
• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  4/1/2020
  

  Singular They: Nonbinary Language in the Historical Community

  As the dictionary’s staff wrote in explaining their pick, “English famously lacks a gender-neutral singular pronoun... and as a consequence ‘they’ has been used for this purpose for over 600 years.”

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/5/2020
  

  Mystery Shipwreck Dates to Before Revolutionary War, Researcher Says

  The hull of a ship that surfaces every few years on a Maine beach may have been the Defiance, a sloop built in 1754.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/2/2020
  

  Everyone Wore Masks During The 1918 Flu Pandemic. They Were Useless.

  In 1918, with a different virus, masks didn’t help.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/6/2020
  

  A Rich (Very Rich) History of the Jewish Dairy Restaurant

  In a new book, the writer and illustrator Ben Katchor celebrates the places that have fed New York’s craving for blintzes, matzo brei and other delicacies.

• 
• SOURCE: Nature
  4/6/2020
  

  How Physics is Rocked by the Waves of History

  Up close, the all too human business of doing science is messy. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Monthly
  4/7/2020
  

  When Environmentalists Won Over the Supreme Court

  How one improbable legal case drove the federal government to regulate greenhouse gases.  

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/6/2020
  

  How Racism Is Destroying America (Book Review)

  by Michael Ignatieff

  A white liberal progressive confronts the issue of race in America with beliefs that make it difficult to face a reality that their fellow citizens of black or Hispanic origin take for granted.

• 
• SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer
  4/7/2020
  

  Historians Throw Shade at Colorism Conflict in Netflix’s ‘Self Made’ Madam C.J. Walker Series

  Critics of Self Made could not contain their indignation over Walker’s life narrative being twisted into a colorism-fueled cat fight, an early 1900s Real Housewives.

• 
• SOURCE: American Historical Association
  4/6/2020
  

  AHA Issues Statement Regarding Historians and COVID-19 (April 2020)

  Like our colleagues in related disciplines, historians can also explore the challenges public health authorities, governments, and nonprofit institutions face.

• 
• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  4/4/2020
  

  How Coffee Became a Modern Necessity

  Once used to fuel extraordinary acts of worship and creativity, coffee has become a necessity we rely on to meet the everyday demands of modern capitalism.

• 
• SOURCE: 1843 Magazine
  4/2/2020
  

  Confederacy in the 'Hood

  For two-and-a-half years, Benjamin Israel, an African-American Orthodox Jew, attended every meeting of the city council in Hollywood, Florida, to talk about street names.

• 
• SOURCE: The Undefeated
  4/1/2020
  

  In 1918 and 2020, Race Colors America’s Response to Epidemics

  Race and ethnicity have been, and continue to be, enormous factors in determining whether people will receive medical attention when they become ill, and the sort of attention they will receive.

• 
• SOURCE: Organization of American Historians
  4/6/2020
  

  OAH Announces Annual Awards

  The Organization of American Historians has announced the winners of its annual prizes for scholarship and service.