The Latest 
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Putin's Claims Distort the Meaning of World War II; His War may Repeat its Destructiveness
Peter Rutland
The deprivation of Putin's childhood in Leningrad may explain the centrality of the second world war to his nationalist vision and the self-conviction with which he has ordered the invasion, but his take on history is obscenely divorced from reality.
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The Power and Urgency of Public History
David M. Chamberlain
After a tour of the South's historical sites, I maintain a teacher’s optimism that knowledge of our nation’s imperfect past offers us the necessary wisdom to walk ourselves back from the edge of the political ledge on which we are so perilously perched.
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Historians on the Ukraine Invasion
Historians weigh in on the unfolding crisis as bombs fall on Ukrainian cities and Russian troops advance.
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Blog
Inside the Student Movement in the Sixties: An Interview with Renowned Seattle Municipal Leader and Author Nick Licata on His New Memoir
Robin Lindley
"She looked around, shrugged, turned to me, said, 'Good luck,' and walked off. That's when I figured out that authority had to be achieved by uniting the weaker ones to form a...
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How Lincoln and Douglass Joined Forces for Freedom
Jonathan W. White
Lincoln's discussions with Frederick Douglass should make clear the difference between the president's public statements and his inner convictions on emancipation.
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Heather Cox Richardson White House Interview with Joe Biden
Historian Heather Cox Richardson talks with President Joe Biden about his views on American democracy in the 21st century.
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Blog
Why Two Congresswomen, Generations Apart, Stood Alone Against the Tide of War
Ronald L. Feinman
Jeannette Rankin and Barbara Lee both put their principles ahead of popularity in opposing resolutions for war in Congress.
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The Roundup Top Ten for March 4, 2022
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
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Wheat and Deep Ports: The Long History of Putin's Invasion of Ukraine
Scott Reynolds Nelson
Every would-be empire depends on the global trade in food and energy; regardless of the consequences of the current Ukraine crisis, Russia's drive to control the Black Sea won't go away.
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Ghosts in the Mirror: France's Crusade Against Former Nazis in the Algerian Insurgency
Danny Orbach
Nazi fugitives and mercenaries took on an outsize significance in the strategic imaginations of both French and West German governments and intelligence agencies in the Cold War; they were most influential not through their actions but through distorting government policy through these delusions of power.
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Remember Blowback over Belgium: Will Putin Lose the War of Image?
Robert Brent Toplin
The potential for global media attention to the atrocities that will result from a Russian occupation of Ukraine should give Putin pause to reconsider the cost of military victory.
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Understanding Putin's Historical Vision of Ukraine is the Necessary Foundation of Diplomacy
Walter G. Moss
It's not necessary to accept Putin's nationalistic claims of historical unity between Russia and Ukraine, but it is necessary to understand them as the basis of Russian actions.
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Bridget the Grocer and the First American Kennedys
Neal Thompson
The history of the Irish immigrant Kennedys has long focused on its prominent men. A new book looks to JFK's grandmother Bridget Murphy Kennedy as the foundation of the family and a neglected figure for understanding immigration, urban life, and the changing of American politics.
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Irwin Gellman Asks: Did JFK Steal Victory in the "Campaign of the Century"?
Justin P. Coffey
Irwin Gellman's latest volume in his political history of Nixon argues the 1960 election returns in Illinois and Texas were rigged for Kennedy. A reviewer finds the case is intriguing but falls short of solid proof, though it does resonate with charges of stolen elections and media favoritism that are all too familiar today.
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Excerpt: Gee Brown and Firestone's Liberian Empire of Rubber
Gregg Mitman
The African American intellectual Gee Brown confronts the brutality of Firestone's rubber plantation empire in Liberia in an excerpt from a new history of the company.
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Time is Short and the Tests are Stern for the Biden Presidency
Simon Serfaty
After his election on the promise of a restoration of normalcy, international events have been particularly unfavorable to Joe Biden. Fair or not, his political survival hinges on resolving a set of crises with no time to spare.
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The Roundup Top Ten for February 25, 2022
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
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Ugly Echoes of Historical Miscegenation Panic in Federal Trial of Arbery's Killers
Elise Lemire
Text messages revealed in the federal trial of Ahmaud Arbery's killers reveal a potent fear of interracial sexuality that has long shadowed conflicts over power in American society.
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The Revolution Whisperer
Greg Shaw
The author hoped to write a biography of William Small, the Scottish polymath whose mentorship linked the political revolution of Thomas Jefferson and the industrial one of James Watt. Learning that another researcher had beaten him to the punch didn't diminish the author's admiration for the story in the least.
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Lessons from the History Textbook Wars of the 1920s
Bruce W. Dearstyne
Historians helped defuse a national tempest over allegedly unpatriotic textbooks in the 1920s by explaining the nature of professional historical research, interpretation, and dissemination, and insisting on the right and duty of professionals to exert expertise. That kind of work is needed again today.
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Martin Indyk Writes the Palestinians Out of the History of Kissinger's Middle East Diplomacy
James R. Stocker
Martin Indyk’s new work offers a vivid portrait of the former Secretary of State’s Arab-Israeli diplomacy, but he completely misses one of the most important parts of this policy – the Palestinians.
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Malverne: The Incomplete Struggle for School Integration on Long Island
Alan J. Singer
The general diversity of Long Island should be the area's strength. It's time to learn lessons from the past and stop allowing the area to be carved up into small and segregated school districts.
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Why the Short and Rebellious Life of Stephen Crane Still Matters
Linda H. Davis
Though he quickly became a model of literary celebrity of the sort we would recognize today, Stephen Crane's more crucial legacy is of the pursuit of truth without regard to consequence.
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The Strangely Fettable Burial Place of Henry VIII
Emma Levitt
Though the monarch's grandiose plans for his own tomb were never fulfilled, they reveal much about Henry VIII's ideas of power and masculinity, and pose an ironic contrast to the austere slab that marks his resting place today.
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The Roundup Top Ten for February 18, 2022
The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.
News
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