News about the National History Center or the history profession.
After the first quarter century of development since the overthrow of Communism and the reunification of East and West Germany, how does one draw up a balance sheet? How can one assess the transfer of political institutions, the economic crises, the difficulties of women’s adjustment? There were substantial developments but also significant failures. Many of [...]
The National History Center of the American Historical Association has announced the lecturers who will speak in conjunction with the Eighth International Seminar on Decolonization, July 8 through August 2, 2013. Elizabeth Borgwardt, associate professor of history and law at Washington University in St. Louis, will give the first public lecture, scheduled for 4 p.m. [...]
C-SPAN 3′s American History TV aired the National History Center’s Congressional Briefing, Historical Perspectives on Congress and Immigration Policy, at 5:45 a.m. and 9:45 a.m. EDT Sunday, May 12, and at 1:45 a.m. EDT on Monday, May 13. The program is now available from C-SPAN’s Video Library at Congressional Briefing on Immigration – C-SPAN. A [...]
During the American Civil War Abraham Lincoln stated that his paramount object was to save the Union, leading many since to question his reputation as “The Great Emancipator.” Emancipation and the nation’s unity were indivisible in Lincoln’s mind, and it was for the fusion and pursuit of these two ideas that British and other foreign [...]
Announcing the 2013 Spring Semester schedule for the Washington History Seminar – Historical Perspectives on International and National Affairs. Below are listed the speakers, the dates on which they will be speaking, and their respective topics. January 28: Eric Foner (Columbia), Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation February 4: Michael Dobbs (WWC), origins of the Cold War February [...]
First Lady Michelle Obama’s family – black, white and multiracial – journeyed from slavery to the White House in five generations. Her forbears included slaves who toiled on vast plantations, mixed-race people who lived free for decades before Emancipation, and Irish-Americans who fought for the Confederacy. In this presentation to the Washington History Seminar, Rachel [...]
Iraq was the single mandated territory—out of fourteen—to achieve independent statehood while still under the jurisdiction of the League of Nations. But what kind of “independence” was this? By coming to an agreement with nationalist elites in Iraq, Britain was able to retain control of crucial economic concessions and military rights in this key region [...]
To understand how and why past decisions were taken it is essential to look at them from the inside out, not with hindsight. To comprehend the decision-making process, it helps to study specific choices, such as those: to commit British troops to the Korean War, 1950; to reverse the Egyptian nationalization of the Suez Canal, [...]
Historically, the series of modern revolutions beginning with the American and the French at the end of the eighteenth century led to the attempts to replace ancient and dictatorial systems of government by new, constitutional governments legitimated by a popular election. In the Middle East, a parallel pattern can be seen in the history of [...]
The Iraq war was a form of everyday bureaucratic governance with the Iraq government managing resistance and religious diversity and shaping a public culture in which soldiering and martyrdom became markers of privileged citizenship. In this Washington History Seminar session, Dina Rizk Khoury argued that the men and families of those who fought and died [...]