| Trending on HNN - Remember Punk Rock? Probably Not…: The Real Culture War of 1980s America Kevin Mattson - "Elvis In The Box": The National Enquirer Issue that Made Today's Celebrity Culture Michael Nelson - Twelve Scholars Critique the 1619 Project and the New York Times Magazine Editor Responds
This Week's Op Eds Original essays for the History News Network.
 by Ben Railton In practice, as we see today with Trump and company, American celebratory patriotism has often been wedded to a second and far more divisive form: exclusionary mythologizing patriotism. There are alternatives that also deserve recognition as patriotism. |
 by Noah Shusterman If his lawyer wants to argue that Kyle Rittenhouse was acting in the spirit of those eighteenth-century militias which went outside the law and defied their state government, and especially those who did so in the interest of promoting white supremacy – his case would be historically solid. It would not, however, be an exoneration. |
 by Shannon Bontrager Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address demanded that Americans keep the memory of both the Union dead and their cause alive and "hot." The cooling of that memory has enabled backlashes against justice through history, and today. |
 by Aaron J. Leonard The author of a new book on the FBI's surveillance of folk musicians argues that Woody Guthrie did join the Communist Party, though he was at odds with leadership over discipline. The affiliation is reflected in the lyrics of his most famous song. |
 by John Bodnar Trump's July 3 speech at Mount Rushmore, like his attacks on historians this week, embodied an escapist nostalgia that purges injustice, conflict, and violence. Abraham Lincoln's brand of nostalgia is more worthy of embracing. |
 by Steve Vogel Dwight Eisenhower oversaw an aggressive building of American intelligence capability toward the USSR, moving espionage to a more prominent role in Cold War foreign policy. This included ordering the CIA to tunnel into East Berlin to tap Soviet phone lines. |
 by James Thornton Harris Rick Perlstein's latest volume in his study of the rise of the conservative movement focuses on the coming of Reaganism, but sheds light on how we got Trump. |
 by Walter G. Moss Reconciling America's racial divisions requires honest reckoning with the past, and teaching history as a search for the truth, not an effort to inclulcate patriotism, placate parents, or pander to censorious textbook commissions. |
 by Steve Hochstadt "Patriotic rituals were designed to indoctrinate young and old with the belief that the racist, sexist, antisemitic America of the 20th century was already perfect, that criticisms of racial injustice or gender discrimination were illegitimate, that America was God's country and corporate capitalism was God's handiwork." |
 by George Herring Political mudslinging by presidential surrogates is nothing new. But Trump digs in personally to his social media smears in a way that is unprecedented and degrading to the office and the nation. |
 by Eric Laursen Maurice Brinton--the pseudonym of a British neurologist--authored an influential series of works of radical political thought that urged the British left to move away from rigid party structures and doctrinal disputes toward social movements. |
 by Donald J. Fraser President Donald Trump may indeed be right, this is the most important election in our history. Just not for the reasons he believes. |
Don't Miss!
 by Jonathan Entin A former clerk recalls Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a pioneering legal strategist who laid the groundwork for significant legal challenges to sex discrimination. |
 by HNN Staff The passing of the long-serving Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg prompts reflection on her legacy as a lawyer and jurist, the future of the court, and the impact of a nomination fight on the election. |
 by Richard Kreitner The ink was hardly dry on Lee's surrender at Appomattox before Andrew Johnson's conciliation toward the former Confederacy clashed with the unfulfilled goals of freed slaves and radical Republicans to threaten further violence. These fault lines have been hidden but never healed in the restored American union. |
 by Robert F. Williams The lesson of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion for African Americans is a sadly familiar one: proving oneself is not enough; becoming members of a select fraternity was not enough to earn the respect and equality that comes with full citizenship. |
 by Robin Lindley "I had two articles that I wanted to write. One was all about white supremacy and memory and the other was about lies and memory. And then I looked at those projects and it eventually dawned on me that this was actually the same project. The lies were part of the monuments and the white supremacy aspect was tied to the monuments and the Confederate fraud." | Roundup Top 10
 The top op eds by historians from around the web last week. | |
0 comments:
Post a Comment