"The series opens with Ferguson in a classroom, asking a bunch of kids to ‘help me understand what made Western civilization dominate the world for the last 500 years.’ At first, it may look as if he’s put off doing his research until the cameras are on him and he’s prepared to take whatever the little mouth-breathers throw his way and run with it. But he’s really just indulging in the celebrity intellectual’s passion for inviting representatives of the great unwashed to tell him what the conventional wisdom is, so he can either deride it or improve upon it. (One kid says of his European forefathers, ‘They had the attitude they should probably get on boats and go invade other countries.’ Ferguson, writing on the blackboard, translates that as ‘Exploration.’) Showing them how it’s done, he tells the youngsters that he’s boiled it all down to ‘six killer apps’ without which Western dominance could not have happened. He lists them on the blackboard: ‘competition,’ ‘science,’ ‘democracy,’ ‘medicine,’ ‘consumerism,’ and the ‘work ethic.’ The show itself then breaks down into six segments exploring each of these points, with the relevant word flashing on the screen so that those who’ve been keeping score will have a rough idea of how much longer this crap will go on. Well, five of the words on the blackboard show up again, but when Ferguson gets to the segment that should be devoted to ‘democracy,’ it’s the word ‘property’ that flashes onscreen. This tells you a lot about where his head is at, and also how far he thought he could push it with the school kids without them pelting him with Mentos."

From the A.V. Club’s review of the new Niall Ferguson PBS documentary, Civilization: The West and the Rest.

I think the best word to describe how Niall Ferguson makes me feel is “uncomfortable.” It makes me uncomfortable that he’s so well-established; that he’s the leading historian in the world arguing in favor of neo-imperialism; that he’s so eager to defend Europe’s (and unsurprisingly, particularly Britain’s) imperial past; that he constantly utilizes the Great Man Theory of History, a construct which seemed dated at its inception in the 19th-century and is laughable to most all modern historians; that his definition of “civilization” seemingly ignores indigenous groups, Africans, and Asians; and that he once wrote a history of World War I which presented a utopian vision of Europe under German rule. And not to mention this choice quote, from a Newsweek column he wrote:

“I just read the transcripts of some lectures [Newt Gingrich] gave in the 1990s on ‘Renewing American Civilization.’ They positively fizz with historical insights and brilliant brain waves. They make the case against big government as vividly as anything you’ll ever read.” 

I think I might need a better word than “uncomfortable,” on second thought. 

anticapitalist:

Our real first gay president

The new issue of Newsweek features a cover photo of President Obama topped by a rainbow-colored halo and captioned “The First Gay President.” The halo and caption strike me as cheap sensationalism. I realize airport travelers look at a magazine for 2.2 seconds before moving on to the next one. I grant that this cover will probably get Newsweek a 4.4 second glance. I also understand that Newsweek is desperate for sales. Nevertheless, I doubt that the Newsweek of old, before it was sold for a dollar, would have pandered as shallowly.

The caption is a superficial way to characterize an important development of thought that the president — along with the country — has been making over recent years. It is also entirely wrong. Like the mini-furor a couple of months back about the claim that Richard Nixon was our first gay president, the story simply ignores that the U.S. already had a gay president more than a century ago.

There can be no doubt that James Buchanan was gay, before, during and after his four years in the White House. Moreover, the nation knew it, too — he was not far into the closet.

Today, I know no historian who has studied the matter and thinks Buchanan was heterosexual. Fifteen years ago, historian John Howard, author of “Men Like That,” a pioneering study of queer culture in Mississippi, shared with me the key documents, including Buchanan’s May 13, 1844, letter to a Mrs. Roosevelt. Describing his deteriorating social life after his great love, William Rufus King, senator from Alabama, had moved to Paris to become our ambassador to France, Buchanan wrote:

I am now “solitary and alone,” having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.

(via sentimentality)

foreignaffairsmagazine:

Botching the Bomb: Why Nuclear Weapons Programs Often Fail on Their Own — and Why Iran’s Might, Too

(From the new issue, out next week.)

Nuclear weapons are hard to build for managerial reasons, not technical ones. This is why so few authoritarian regimes have succeeded: they don’t have the right culture or institutions. When it comes to Iran’s program, then, the United States and its allies should get out of the way and let Iran’s worst enemies — its own leaders — gum up the process on their own. Read the full article.

Why do I find nuclear arms so fascinating? Why do I find all of the morbid history so interesting?

"

At this time, 1890, we are too near the removal of the Cherokees for our young people to fully understand the enormity of the crime that was committed against a helpless race. Truth is, the facts are being concealed from the young people of today. School children of today do not know that we are living on lands that were taken from a helpless race at the bayonet point to satisfy the white man’s greed.

Future generations will read and condemn the act and I do hope posterity will remember that private soldiers like myself, and like the four Cherokees who were forced by General Scott to shoot an Indian Chief and his children, had to execute the orders of our superiors. We had no choice in the matter.

I can truthfully say that I did my best for them when they certainly did need a friend. Twenty-five years after the removal I still lived in their memory as ‘the soldier that was good to us.’

However, murder is murder whether committed by the villain skulking in the dark or by uniformed men stepping to the strains of martial music.

Murder is murder, and somebody must answer. Somebody must explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian country in the summer of 1838. Somebody must explain the 4000 silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile. I wish I could forget it all, but the picture of 645 wagons lumbering over the frozen ground with their cargo of suffering humanity still lingers in my memory.

Let the historian of a future day tell the sad story with its sighs, its tears and dying groans. Let the great Judge of all the earth weigh our actions and reward us according to our work.

"

From John Burnett’s “Birthday Story,” the most unflinching account of the Trail of Tears that I’ve read. Burnett was a guilt-ridden Union soldier who recounted his experiences to his children years later, in 1890. Everyone and anyone should read this. The original account ran about four pages in Word. I cut it down to one and a half for a group of my students to look at (it was a jigsaw activity, and all the readings have to be about a page in length). I felt awful cutting it down, since every line is just amazing. Read it now.

southerncornbread:

luvyourselfsomeesteem:

aichlee:

A Great Day in Harlem - Art Kane, 1958
A Great Day in Harlem Survivors - Gordon Parks, 1996

lovely & sad.

People leave, things change but the memory is still there.

This is beautiful.

(via democracyoftouch)

This made me lol pretty hard.

I made a Scumbag Andrew Jackson meme for my PowerPoint after the meme website was a dick and wouldn’t let me save it properly. Am I a cool teacher yet? Here it is, for the curious (I was able to make it bigger in my PowerPoint, thankfully):

About to start planning a lesson about Andrew Jackson and Indian Removal.

I’ve got only one thing to say, y’all:

It’s going to be even better since my cooperating teacher and I are breezing through the curriculum (we’re kind of playing catch-up) and will be unable to focus on Jackson’s “democratic man of the people” bullshit “achievements” at all. Which means the lesson is going to pretty much go straight into Indian affairs. In other words: fuck off, Jackson.

HISTORICITY (was already taken): Yes, history is important →

historicity-was-already-taken:

A job application I submitted last month asked me to write an essay about why history is still relevant today.

Every day when I am cruising the history/everything tag looking for stuff to feature, I see all these posts which say things like “I just don’t understand why history is important,” or…

the-seed-of-europe:

J.C. Leyendecker, Saturday Evening Post cover, August 17th, 1918.

(via schizometriclanguage)

laphamsquarterly:

On this President’s Day, let us never forget the moment Nixon met Elvis. 

Presley indicated to the president in a very emotional manner that he was “on your side.” Presley kept repeating that he wanted to be helpful, that he wanted to restore some respect for the flag, which was being lost. He mentioned that he was just a poor boy from Tennessee who had gotten a lot from his country, which in some way he wanted to repay. He also mentioned he has been studying communist brainwashing and the drug culture for over ten years. He mentioned that he knew a lot about this and was accepted by the hippies. He said he could go right into a group of young people or hippies and be accepted, which he felt could be helpful to him in his drug drive. The president indicated again his concern that Presley retain his credibility.

After writing a six-page letter on American Airlines stationery asking for a meeting, Elvis visited Nixon at the White House on December 21, 1970. He gave the president a set of family photos and  commemorative WWII Colt .45 pistol.

unhistorical:

February 19, 1942: President Roosevelt issues Executive Order 9066.

Although the text of the order simply stated that the Secretary of War and Military Commanders had the power “to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded”, it was eventually used to justify the relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans.

Many Japanese-Americans sought to prove their loyalty to the United States, such as the owner of this shop, captured in a famous Dorothea Lange photograph:

The man was later interned, along with over 150,000 other Japanese-Americans, nearly 2/3rds of whom were American citizens. War hysteria, self-interest, and racial prejudice led to widespread support for this mass relocation.

The United States Armed Forces eventually requested volunteers from the internees, and thousands of Japanese-Americans responded to the call: the 442nd Infantry Regiment was composed entirely of Japanese-Americans (many of whom had been interned), and it eventually became the most decorated unit in the history of the U.S. Military, receiving over 9,000 Purple Hearts and twenty-one Medals of Honor. 

(via )

vagrant:

Today, we will be stars.

"

Somebody called me an Indian giver recently. I don’t know if you’ve heard that expression, since you were kids. But I remember we used to call each other— ‘Indian giver’ is one of the most offensive things you could ever say— because what it’s meant to be is that someone gave you something and then they changed their minds. That makes you an Indian giver.

We equate this to the Indians because our feeling is that they gave us America, and then they— well, they didn’t take it back, certainly. We got here and the Indians were like, ‘hi.’ And we were like, ‘hey, can we have everything?’ And they were like, ‘well, we don’t know what ‘have’ means, but enjoy all the things that you need, like we do.’ So we start killing all of them. And they were like, ‘oh, dude, could you not do that part where you kill all of us? ‘cause that’s kind of a drag for us.’ And we’re like, ‘you guys are Indian givers! oh, my God! we’re gonna name that after you. You guys are dicks!’

"

Louis C.K.

This is how I should explain Manifest Destiny to my eighth-graders.