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: 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. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/3/2020
  

  After Reparations

  How a scholarship helped — and didn't help — descendants of victims of the 1923 Rosewood racial massacre.

• 
• SOURCE: Haaretz
  4/4/2020
  

  Will Coronavirus Change How We Think About Climate Change?

  Harvard historian Naomi Oreskes believes the coronavirus may be a 'dress rehearsal' for the climate catastrophe looming on the horizon – and suggests why people want to deny both threats.

• 
• SOURCE: Art News
  4/2/2020
  

  David C. Driskell, Tireless Advocate for Black Art History, Is Dead at 88

  Driskell's work, including the famous exhibition "Two Centuries of Black American Art," illustrated the importance of black artists in American art history.

• 
• 4/2/2020
  

  NCMC Mourns the Loss of Longtime Professor Who Died Due to COVID-19

  Larry Cummings was a history and geography professor at North Central Michigan College for more than 50 years.

• 
• SOURCE: Quartz
  4/1/2020
  

  The US Government Has a Long History of Using Crises to Justify Indefinite Mass Detention

  Governments, both federal and local, are already flirting with emergency powers to fight the spread of coronavirus that contravene the rights residents normally take for granted.

• 
• SOURCE: Ashland Tidings
  4/1/2020
  

  SOU Linguistics Professor Writes a Book About the History of Presidential Insults

  In his new book, “Dangerous Crooked Scoundrels,” Southern Oregon University professor Edwin Battistella details the vicious, scurrilous and often laughable ways American political operatives have used name-calling to provoke and besmirch foes in the top job.

• 
• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  4/2/2020
  

  Scholars v. COVID-19 Racism

  Scholars are among those confronting the rise in anti-Asian and anti-Asian American racism that’s come with COVID-19.

• 
• SOURCE: The Metropole (Urban History Association)
  4/01/2020
  

  Neglected Gems of Urban History

  by Richard Harris

  For two generations, Lampard told urban historians that cities mattered especially, but not only, in economic terms.

• 
• SOURCE: Crain's Cleveland Business
  3/30/2020
  

  And The Winners of the 2020 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Are ...

  Henry Louis Gates Jr., who chairs the Anisfield-Wolf jury, said in a statement that the winners "bring us fresh insights on race and diversity."

• 
• SOURCE: AHA Committee on LGBTQ History
  3/30/2020
  

  AHA's Committee on LGBT History Announces Hardship Grants

  In an effort to address member needs, we are announcing 10 CLGBTH Hardship Grants of $200 each to members of the Committee. First-come first-served, no questions asked.

• 
• SOURCE: Vox
  3/28/2020
  

  What Both the Left and the Right Get Wrong About the Coronavirus Economic Crisis

  Financial historian Adam Tooze on the lessons policymakers need to learn, and fast.