The Electoral College and the Myth of a Proslavery Ploy
By Sean Wilentz
The Latest 
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Do Those Closest to Trump Think He's Fit for Office?
Vaughn Davis Bornet
If Trump can’t or won’t a support rational federal government in all three branches, something will have to be done about it.
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Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.
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Blog
American Jews Versus Israeli Politics
Steve Hochstadt
The latest Israeli elections suggest there will be no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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Blog
I Stuck with Nixon. Here’s Why Science Says I Did It.
Stone Age Brain
And what that reveals about Trump supporters.
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The Sorrow of Watching Notre Dame Burn
Ed Simon
"In this age of uncertainty, of rage, of horror, and of violence; of the decline of democracy and the heating of the planet; it can feel as if Notre-Dame’s fire is as if watching the very world itself be engulfed."
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Benny and Joon and a Good Look at Schizophrenia
Bruce Chadwick
It is the story of how all mental illnesses affect families. We need more of these stories.
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President Donald Trump, HIV/AIDS, and Black Lesbian and Gay Activism
Darius Bost
Trump’s plan to end AIDS within this decade came as a surprise given his history with communities most impacted by HIV/AIDS.
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Health Care for All – A Cautionary Tale from the 1970s
Richard Moe
If the ultimate goal is to expand affordable health care to every American, Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy offer important lessons.
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Ilhan Omar is a Reconstruction Reformer
William Horne
The failure to hold the race-baiting press, politicians, and vigilantes responsible during Reconstruction undermined any semblance of equality for more than 100 years. We can't make the same mistake.
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Oh, What a Beautiful Piece of American History
Bruce Chadwick
The story of young settlers as they try to find their place in Oklahoma, America, and the world. It is a nicely told saga told within all of those memorable tunes.
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When Women Ran Hollywood
Juliette Fay
Their names may no longer be widely recognizable, but women built and ran early Hollywood, shaped the industry in myriad ways, and influenced what we see on the silver screen even today.
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Trump’s War on Civil Rights and Beyond: A Conversation with Acclaimed Political Analyst and Civil Rights Historian Juan Williams
Robin Lindley
"We need to understand how much blood, sweat, and tears it took to create the thriving Black America of today and protect us from those who, like President Trump, couldn’t care less."
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Teacher Pay, Presidential Politics, and New York’s Modest Proposal of 1818
Adam Laats
When underpaid teachers threaten to walk away, school leaders have always considered desperate plans to fix desperate financial problems.
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How did President Reagan Deal with Violent Radicals In His Own Party?
Jeffrey Kaplan
Trump's reaction to the tragedy in New Zealand and the series of domestic church and synagogue shootings bring to mind an earlier day and a very different president.
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Is the Western World Declining and Russia Rising?
Walter G. Moss
Yes, according to Glenn Diesen’s 2018 book The Decay of Western Civilization and Resurgence of Russia. But this isn't the first time scholars have made such a prediction and been wrong.
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The Spies' Marathon before Patriots Day
William Lambers
A tale of a spy mission gone wrong and the history behind Patriots' Day.
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The Israeli Elections and What We Can Learn from History
Yoav J. Tenembaum
To understand the Israeli electoral process one has to delve more deeply into Israeli society and the way it has evolved.
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Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.
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Why the Second Summit Between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un Failed
Benjamin R. Young
Despite more than sixty years since the armistice declaring the end of the Korean War, the U.S and North Korea seemed closer to peace than ever before.
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The Long History of Anti-Immigration Legislation and "Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude"
Stephanie Hinnershitz
The Supreme Court's Nielsen v. Preap decision is just the latest example of using this concept to deport immigrants.
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A Response to Rebecca Spang's "MMT and Why Historians Need to Reclaim Studying Money"
Maxximilian Seijo
Rather than rely on economists that used to tell us that we can’t afford to care of people, MMT gives us the precise tools to do so.
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The Golan Heights: Its History and Significance Today
Moriel Ram
Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights might have serious repercussions for the future but to understand exactly why, and how, it’s necessary to first understand the past.
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Blog
Senator Chuck Schumer says corporations used to care; here's how historians responded
Checkered History
Seven historians responded to Senator Schumer's claim of a golden age of corporate responsibility.
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James Madison Responds to Sean Wilentz
Alan Singer
The Electoral College may not have been expressly designed only to protect African slavery, but based on Madison’s notes, it was the mode most preferred by pro-slavery forces.
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Venezuela and the Birth of the American Empire
Benjamin Welton
Why is a nearly 200-year old document still relevant today?
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The Propaganda Posters That Won The U.S. Home Front
Albinko Hasic
Artists suddenly became soldiers on the front to win the hearts and minds of the American public.
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The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton
James Thornton Harris
The Ghost, a new biography of Angleton by Jefferson Morley, a Washington journalist, provides an intriguing look at this powerful, enigmatic Cold Warrior.
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What I’m Reading: An Interview With Historian of Mexico Pablo Piccato
Erik Moshe
He hopes historians claim a stronger voice in the public sphere to talk about the present under the light of the past.
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Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.
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The Red Scare: From the Palmer Raids to Joseph McCarthy to Donald Trump
Ronald L. Feinman
Trump has learned very well from prior anti-Communism crusaders, and it requires vigilance and activism to cope with the threat he represents every day.
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ROOAARRRR: 66 Million Years of Tales about the Big, Bad T-Rex Dinosaur
Bruce Chadwick
If you love dinosaurs and/or being chased by one, this exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History is for you. Bring the kids.
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The Temptations: Born in the Turmoil of the 1960s and Still Conquering
Bruce Chadwick
Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations, is out and out hit, and a great window on entertainment history.
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MMT and Why Historians Need to Reclaim Studying Money
Rebecca Spang
Historians need to reclaim money as something to be studied in specific social and political contexts.
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Elizabeth Blackwell, MD., Hero, Humanitarian, and Teacher
Charles F. Howlett
She used her skills as a teacher to become not only the first American female physician but also its first female professor of medicine.
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The Perils of Criminal Justice Reform
Tony Platt
It will take nothing short of a broad-based movement, a revitalized imagination, and reckoning with a historical legacy that bleeds into the present to make the criminalized human again and end the tragedy of the carceral state.
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E-Carceration: Are Digital Prisons The Future?
Christopher Twarowski
Digital “shackles” have been utilized by the U.S. criminal justice system for more than 30 years but their use has increased a whopping 140 percent throughout the past decade.
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Immigration Restriction by Remote Control
Elliott Young
While much of the coverage of immigration has focused on the Border Wall, we have forgotten that for over 100 years, most immigration restriction has happened beyond the borders of the United States.
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The Psychotherapy of Marcus Aurelius
Donald Robertson
Did one of Rome’s wisest and most revered emperors benefit from an ancient precursor of cognitive psychotherapy?
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The Holocaust and the Christian World
Patrick Henry
A new book offers reflections on the past of antisemitism and challenges for combatting it today.
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How Hollywood has been fooled by Robert F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists
Mel Ayton
Sirhan Sirhan is guilty.
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Blog
The Weakness of Democracy
Steve Hochstadt
When we extend our gaze beyond the US, we can more easily perceive that democracy often works badly.
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Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.
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A Heartwarming Lost Chapter on Immigrants Emerges
Bruce Chadwick
Playwright Harelik does not just tell his grandfather’s personal story in The Immigrant; he tells the story, in one way or another of all immigrants.
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A Scorching Look at a Word War II Jewish Ghetto in Poland
Bruce Chadwick
The play is a deep, rich and thoroughly frightening story of the Jews’ battle for survival in the city of Vilna.
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America, Palestine, and UNRWA: A History of Self-interest
Laura Robson
Donald Trump recently announced he would withdraw from the American commitment to provide some $300 million to UNRWA. Here is the history of the organization and American involvement.
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What Does William Barr Have to Do With Iran Contra?
Jeffrey J. Matthews
And what it means for George H.W. Bush's legacy.
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Is Shoeless Joe Jackson Innocent? The Black Sox Scandal 100 Years Later
Granville Wyche Burgess
As another baseball season begins, the history of baseball's biggest scandal and how its legacy legacy still shapes the sport today.
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An American Socialite and the Biggest British Constitutional Crisis Since Henry VIII's Divorce
Anna Pasternak
Wallis Simpson has become a caricature of villainous womanhood. This Women’s History Month, let's revisit and uncover her real history.
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The Elon Musk of Global Crime and European Colonialism in Africa
Elaine Shannon
Paul LeRoux has to be seen in the context of the history of southern Africa, a rapacious, swash-buckling profiteer trading in guns, drugs, gold, timber, false documents and human life.
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A House Once More Divided
Georgiann Baldino
Lincoln understood that involved citizens preserve the union, and he taught a vital lesson that only when human rights are respected is democracy worth preserving.
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What I’m Reading: An Interview With Environmental Historian Eleonora Rohland
Erik Moshe
“History as a discipline needs to renew itself, needs to reassert or renegotiate its place in society, needs to be vocal on political abuses of terminology or populist and racist reinterpretations of historical events.”
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Political Leadership and the Need for a New American Story
Walter G. Moss
Both Lincoln and FDR understood that to reach people, to motivate them, to win them over, a president had to appeal to their emotions, and storytelling was one way of doing so.
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Vernon Johns: An Often Forgotten Controversial Civil Rights Activist
M. Andrew Holowchak
Johns was a critical figure in the push for racial equality, chiefly because he was not merely a pusher, but also a shover.
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What Democratic Socialism Is and Is Not
Lawrence Wittner
Of course, democratic socialism might not be what you want. But let’s not pretend that it’s something that it’s not.
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Trump's Executive Order Censors Free Speech on College Campuses
Ed Simon
The House Un-American Activities Committee and the real intent of Trump's "free speech" executive order.
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Blog
What is Antisemitism?
Steve Hochstadt
Many, perhaps most accusations of antisemitism are made in good faith for the purpose of calling attention to real religious prejudice. B...
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Blog
Mike Pence Says the US Has Been "A Force For Good in the Middle East" for "nearly 200 years"; Here's How Historians Responded
Checkered History
Eight Middle East historians contribute to a history check on the vice president's claim of 200 years of American goodness.
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Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editors of HNN.
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Andy Warhol: A Lot More than Soup Cans
Bruce Chadwick
A review of the Whitney Musem's exhibit Andy Warhol – From A to B and Back Again and a reflection on the artist.
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