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Making History: Jessica Wolcott Luther

February 14, 2012

In the second installation of our new series, “Making History,” Zach Doleshal speaks with Jessica Wolcott Luther about her experience as a graduate student in history at the University of Texas at Austin. In the interview, Jessica shares stories about researching in seventeenth century archives (she’s been to eleven so far!), studying history using anthropological documents, and overcoming the frustration of knowing that she may never get the chance to find a direct source from a former enslaved person.

Before Red Tails: Black Servicemen in World War I

February 13, 2012

Book cover of Freedom Struggles: African Americans and World War I by Adriane Lentz-Smith

Moviegoers who recently flocked to cinemas around the country to take in George Lucas’ World War II aviation blockbuster, Red Tails, may be unaware of the long and checkered history of black servicemen in the American military in the decades before the ascendance of the now famous Tuskegee Airmen.

The Freedmen’s Bureau: Work After Emancipation

February 8, 2012

In March 1865, the U. S. Congress created the Freedmen’s Bureau for Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands to ease the transition between slavery and freedom for 3.5 million newly liberated slaves. The bureau had three main functions—to distribute rations to Southerners who had been loyal to the Union during the Civil War, to establish public schools for black children and adults, and to oversee labor contracts between landowners and black workers.

Iran’s Nuclear Program and the History of the IAEA

January 24, 2012

As the international community scrambles to stop a nuclear-armed Iran from adding more fuel to the powder keg of Middle Eastern geopolitics, it is vital that contrasting understandings of the international nuclear nonproliferation regime among nations, particularly the purpose of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty administered by the IAEA, be acknowledged and resolved.

The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government by David K. Johnson (2006)

January 18, 2012

In 1958 Frank Kameny was out of a job. A Harvard trained astronomer and veteran of World War II, he had been working for the Army Map Service.

Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum (2004)

January 16, 2012

“Through Labor – Freedom!” read a sign above the entrance to Solovetsky, just one of the 476 camps that comprised the Soviet gulag system.

Undergraduate Essay Contest Honorable Mention: Beirut City Center Recovery: The Foch-Allenby and Etoile Conservation Area by Robert Saliba (2004)

December 5, 2011

The city of Beirut witnessed a legendary amount of violence during the fifteen year long Lebanese Civil War. News programs the world over broadcast it into the homes of millions of people from 1975 till the Lebanese Parliament ratified the Taif accord in late 1989.

“Lightly Fictionalized” Books about the Italian Renaissance

November 25, 2011

I generally go out of my way to avoid historical novels, unless they were written in the nineteenth century. But I’m happy to recommend a slightly different sort of book, one that could be described as lightly fictionalized history.

In The Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and the American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson (2011)

November 15, 2011

Erik Larson is a peculiar type of writer. He writes history as narrative drama, and does it well. Larson locates an important moment in history, then meticulously mines historical archives to construct an entirely non-fiction account of events into what reads like a good novel.

True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey (2001)*

November 14, 2011

Book cover of True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

The title of Carey’s best-seller is misleading. The True History of the Kelly Gang is not a “true history” at all, but rather an imagined autobiography of Australia’s greatest folk-hero, the bushranger Ned Kelly and his band of Irish-Australian outlaws.

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