Links to Recent Articles of Interest
“Tax Season and the Making of the American Fiscal State”
By Ajay K. Mehrota and John Fabian Witt, Made by History – Time, posted April 16
A historical primer on how and why the US came to replace protective tariffs with a graduated income tax, and how Trump administration actions “are combining to push for a dramatic reversal of the decades-long process that built the American fiscal state a century ago.” The authors teach at Northwestern and Yale universities respectively; each teaches law and history.
“Who’s In and Who’s Out at the Naval Academy’s Library”
By John Ismay, New York Times, posted April 11
On the late-March purging of books from the Naval Academy library . Among numerous examples, Linda Gordon’s history of the second coming of the Ku Klux Klan was pulled, while Hitler’s Mein Kampf remains on the shelf. The Bell Curve, arguing for the genetic inferiority of black people, remains while a critique of the book was pulled.The author, a Naval Academy graduate and a ten-year veteran as a naval officer, is a Pentagon reporter for the New York Times.
“Trump Faces Palestine: The Colonial View of the World Never Dies”
By Aviva Chomsky, TomDispatch, posted April 10
Links both US immigration policy and support for Israeli destruction of Gaza with the history of Western colonialism. “Strange to imagine, but the planters of Barbados would undoubtedly be proud to see their ideological descendants continuing to impose violent control on our world, while invoking the racist ideas they proposed in the 1600s.” The author teaches history and Latin American studies at Salem State University.
.“New York’s Kidnapping Club Redux”
By Alan J. Singer, New York Almanack, posted April 9
Likens the sneaky tactics used in antebellum New York City to capture fugitives from slavery (or sometimes free blacks) to present-day seizures of non-citizens targeted for exercising their right to free speech. The author is a historian who directs the program in social studies education at Hofstra University.
“The Failed Ideas That Drive Elon Musk”
By Jill Lepore, New York Times, posted April 4
Traces Musk’s approach to government to the technocracy movement that briefly flourished in the 1930s. Musk’s grandfather Joshua Haldeman was an influential leader of the movement in Canada before moving to South Africa and becoming a fierce defender of apartheid. The author teaches history and law at Harvard University.
“A Different Approach Is Needed for Survival in the Nuclear Age”
By Lawrence Wittner, Peace & Health Blog, posted April 4
Points to an intensifying arms race among nuclear powers and a growing nuclear ambition in other countries responding to erratic Trump administration policies, and argues for stronger international efforts to limit these weapons. The author is a professor emeritus of history at SUNY Albany.
“Worse Than McCarthyism: Universities in the Age of Trump”
By Ellen Schrecker, The Nation, posted April 3
Briefly draws similarities between attacks on higher education in the McCarthy era and today and gives four reasons why the attacks are much worse today. The author is a professor emerita of history at Yeshiva University whose books include Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (Princeton U. Press, 1999) and No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism & the Universities (Cambridge U. Press, 1986).
“America Was at Its Trumpiest 100 Years Ago. Here’s How to Prevent the Worst”
By Adam Hochschild, Washington Post, posted April 3
Describes repression in the US during and after World War I – “Americans in those years saw the federal government act in ways that Trump can only dream of” – and draws lessons for effective resistance. The author is a best-selling historian whose most recent book is American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis (Mariner Books, 2022).
“Trump Cannot Win His War on History”
By David W. Blight, New York Times, posted March 31
Calls the March 27 presidential order attacking the Smithsonian Institution “nothing less than a declaration of political war on the historians’ profession, our training and integrity, as well as on the freedom … of anyone who seeks to understand our country by visiting museums or historic sites.” The author teaches US history at Yale University and is the immediate past president of the Organization of American Historians.
By David Smith, The Guardian, posted March 30
A detailed description of the Smithsonian and the scope of Trump’s directive that the museums’ depiction of US history be drastically altered. The author is the Washington, D.C. bureau chief of The Guardian.
By Omer Bartov, New York Review of Books, posted March 27
A lengthy essay on the acceptance, in Israel and the West, of what he calls the genocide taking place in Gaza. “The memory of the Holocaust has, perversely, been enlisted to justify both the eradication of Gaza and the extraordinary silence with which that violence has been met.” The author is an Israeli-American historian who teaches Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University.
“With US War Crimes, the Only Crime Is Breaching Secrecy Protocols”
By Kevin A. Young, CounterPunch, posted March 27
Likens the “Signalgate” scandal (which has ignored the morality of bombing civilians in Yemen) to Watergate, when “Congressional furor over Nixon’s misbehavior fixated on the pettiest of his crimes. The articles of impeachment in 1974 failed to mention his role in a war of aggression that killed between two and four million people.” The author teaches history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is on the H-PAD Steering Committee.
“The Dark, McCarthyist History of Deporting Activists”
By Michelle Chen, The Progressive, posted March 21
On the arrest and deportation of non-citizen activists in the McCarthy era under the McCarran-Walter Act of 1950. “In publically demonizing human rights activists like Khalil as violent extremists, the White House draws on the ideological mythmaking of the 1950s Red Scare.” The author is a contributing editor of Dissent Magazine.
Thanks to Rusti Eisenberg, Jon Wiener, and an anonymous reader for suggesting articles included in the above list and to Roger Peace for invaluable help in screening articles for possible inclusion. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.