History

WASHINGTON -- While he described himself as “stunned” to be chosen as this year’s Jefferson Lecturer, Leon Kass was hardly apologetic. The University of Chicago professor is best known for the years he spent as chair of President Bush’s Council on Bioethics, and he was invited to give the lecture last fall by the then-chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bruce Cole, himself twice appointed by President Bush.

There was a time, improbable though it may now seem, when it was not considered inherently dubious for academics to work with or for the government. For several decades in the mid-20th century, Soviet studies -- a field born of America's post-World War II desire to understand its ally-turned-enemy -- enjoyed a wealth of government funding and scholarly attention. In a new book, Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America's Soviet Experts, David C.

WASHINGTON -- The session, here at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, was entitled “The Uses and Abuses of New Deal History” – but there was no question that those on the panel were more concerned with the latter. Their general tone, which seemed to be shared by those in the audience, was one of frustration; of anger at Republican lawmakers -- who, according to the panelists, are determined to repeat the same errors that brought about the Great Depression -- and dismay that so many Americans seem to be amenable to the idea.

WASHINGTON -- Jonathan Spence came here to deliver a speech, but don't let that fool you: his address -- the 39th Annual Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, which took place Thursday -- in no way resembled the sort typically associated with D.C.

For people who never joined a Greek letter society, thinking about fraternities tends to evoke "Animal House," alcohol-fueled college parties, or perhaps news stories about the tragic consequences of hazing -- although those in academe, of course, may have a more varied set of associations. Laurie A.

Students enroll at the first college in the United States with a Muslim mission and the first where everyone is a history major.

When people talk about the demolition of the doctrine of "separate but equal," the case everyone focuses on is Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1954 ruling. Four years earlier, however, the Supreme Court rejected that doctrine in a higher education case -- one that set the legal framework for Brown and helped shape the strategy of Thurgood Marshall in his assault on Jim Crow in education.

It has long been said that the winners write the history books -- but those keeping the records may also have their own agendas. How can historians reconstruct the narratives of those who may have been precluded not only from writing history, but even from being "considered legitimate subjects of history and therefore of archival collection"?

Stephen A. Douglas, the "Little Giant" who served in the U.S. Senate and debated Abraham Lincoln, is still much-honored in some quarters.

The University of Minnesota was sued in federal court Tuesday over allegations that a website maintained by its Holocaust studies center defamed a Turkish-American organization in a way that raised First Amendment and due process issues. The suit came just days after the Holocaust center removed the material that is the focus of the suit -- although the university maintains that it acted as part of a routine review and not because of the threat of litigation.