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Bringing You News about History in July

A grim view of London in the eighteenth century, a magnet for country folk seeking higher wages. By Bernard Bailyn, on DelanceyPlace.com.

“The History of the Moon Landing: Everything You Need to Know,” told by the BBC’s History Extra.

CNN on Bastille Day: “Bastille day is so much more than a national holiday — it fostered a culture of civil disobedience in France that inspired countless revolts, uprising, and demonstrations for centuries afterward.”

Steve Beller discusses the history of anti-Semitism among political leftists. In History Today.

A summer theater highlight: the story of Alan Freed, the 1950s DJ who invented the term “rock and roll.” Reviewed by  Bruce Chadwick for the History News Network.

Are analogies to the Holocaust appropriate? No, says the Holocaust Museum. Yes, say 600 scholars. In the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Does the  Declaration of Independence include God? And if so, whose idea of God? Paul Seaton deliberates the question on Law and Liberty.

How John Locke influenced the Declaration of Independence. By Brenée Goforth on the John Locke Foundation site.

See “More about What’s Happening with History and Historians” in the righthand column of this page.

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News about History for June

Brian T. Allen offers new insights into Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms paintings. In National Review.

Young people can’t study AP history in China. It doesn’t conform to the Chinese Communist Party’s view of history.  In Inside Higher Ed.

“Juneteenth” commemorates June 19, 1865, when Texas slaves learned they had been freed and began celebrating “the “other American Independence day.” By Zuri Davis in Reason.

University of Cambridge will investigate its ties to slavery. In History Extra.

“Rosie the Riveter” in Ireland, in the Napoleonic Wars. From JStor Daily.

“Africa’s Lost Kingdoms”:  Howard W.  French reviews five  books about stunning African civilizations. In the New York Review of Books.  “Africa has never lacked civilizations,” he writes.

Enjoy a  pithy interview with Niall Ferguson by History Today.

The tide turned against Hitler in 1941, not 1944, says Andrew Nagorski, in the Daily Beast.

Rebuilding Notre Dame “will reopen the theological-political problem people believe to have been settled by the laicization of 1905 and will thus renew a great political quarrel in France,” warns Titus Techera  on Law & Liberty.

The Russians also launched a major campaign in June 1944. Howard Tanzman describes it (with a map). on his website.

Mackubin  Owens explains the complexity of D-Day. “All military operations are complicated but none more than an amphibious assault against a defended beach,” especially when Clausewitz’s “friction” sets in.  On Law & Liberty.

Tony Williams reviews three new books about D-Day. On Law & Liberty.

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What’s Happening in History

Note: During the summer, I won’t be adding my own posts (I have to build up an inventory for the fall), but will be linking frequently to others’ articles about history. (And there are more links in the righthand column.)

Norman Rockwell, disdained by art critics, loved by many Americans, was the person who made FDR’s speech about “freedom from fear itself” famous. Before that,  Roosevelt’s 1941 inaugural speech was a dud. Brian T. Allen writes the first of  two articles on “Normal Rockwell, Realist” in National Review.

Great Britain’s Queen Victoria was born May 24, 1819, became queen at age 18, and ruled for over 60 years. For the 200th anniversary of her birth, BBC’s History Extra tells many stories about the woman for whom an era was named. One feature is about whether she was pretty or not.

Lighten up, and read about “16 Facts that Will Warp Your Perception of Time” in the Reader’s Digest. For example, the tenth president of the United States, John Tyler, has living grandchildren.

Jeffrey A. Tucker compares today’s effort to bring back protectionism to the counter-revolutionary processes at work just before World War I, when the state began to grow after a century of increasing freedom. On AIER.

Naomi Schaefer Riley of the Wall Street Journal interviews Wilfred McClay, author of a new history book, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story (article is subscriber-only).

Ross Douthat compares The Avengers to Gothic cathedrals. In National Review.

Rebecca Onion attacks David McCullough’s new book. Pioneers, as  the kind of book you find at Costco and Target but not in academe. On Slate.

Continue reading “What’s Happening in History”

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How Quaint the Past

“Barbados has a fascinating past,” says a brightly-colored brochure from Hilton Grand Vacations featuring the island’s blue-green waters and beautiful sand beaches. “Wherever you go, you’ll be pacing through history.” The brochure advises visitors to take the “rum tour” and visit the St. Nicholas Abbey Plantation, built during the height of Barbodos’ wealth in the seventeenth century.

The brochure does mention the “painful history” of slave labor, which, it explains, can be reviewed at the Museum & Historical Society. Then it lists where to eat and the best beaches.

How lightly the past sometimes weighs on the present!

I have just written a paper about Barbados for a history class. Barbados’s history was grim. Barbados was the first English colony to take advantage of the rising English demand for sugar. By 1680 Barbardos  was the richest of England’s colonies. It was the best of times and the worst of times, depending on who you were.

Continue reading “How Quaint the Past”

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Guest Comment: Robert Natelson on Allen Guelzo

It does not surprise me that Paul Finkelman (cited in Allen Guelzo’s article in National Review) argues as he does—he’s long twisted history to promote hostility toward the Aerican Founders. What is more surprising is that most of the Constitution’s defenders, including Prof. Guelzo, have overlooked the actual reasons for the three-fifths clause, which, of course, is Exhibit A in the case against the Constitution.

In the course of researching my 2015 article on the use of financial phrases in the Constitution, I uncovered those actual reasons. They should not be so obscure: the apportionment formula flowed from the framers theories about representation and wealth rather than from any desire to accommodate slavery per se. Here is the relevant excerpt from my article.   What the Constitution Means by “Duties, Imposts, and Excises”—and Taxes (Direct or Otherwise), 66 Case Western Res. L. Rev. 297 (2015). The many footnote citations are omitted:

Agreeing on the general principle of apportionment was less difficult than settling on a formula applying it. The Confederation system of allocating requisitions by state land values had proved impractical. Apportionment by actual taxes paid seemed to be likewise unworkable. A new formula was needed.

The starting point in the search was collective agreement that each state’s contribution in federal taxes would be a function of (1) the state’s population (2) and its wealth. Fortunately, experience strongly suggested that, for the most part, wealth followed population. In other words, population usually was a good proxy for wealth. Madison reported Connecticut’s William Samuel Johnson as telling the Constitutional Convention that “wealth and population were the true, equitable rule of representation; but … these two principles resolved themselves into one; population being the best measure of wealth.”

What was true in general, however, was not true always. Slavery created a valuation problem. Although few of the framers thought slavery was a good thing, slavery was a fact and they had to address the conundrum it created. The conundrum was this:

Continue reading “Guest Comment: Robert Natelson on Allen Guelzo”