Links to Recent Articles of Interest
By Peter Kuznick, American Committee for US-Russia Accord, posted July 20
A short piece arguing that in today’s wars “defense has become easier than offense” and that war “is becoming obsolete,” yet momentum is building for the acquisition and potential use of nuclear weapons. Hails the organization of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors, Nihon Hidankyo: “They represent the conscience of humanity.” The author teaches history at American University, where he directs the Nuclear Studies Institute.
“Obama Has a Lot to Say about Everything But His Foreign Policy”
By Stephen R. Weissman, Responsible Statecraft, posted July 14
Bemoans the long wait for the promised second volume of Obama’s presidential memoir, covering the last six years of his eight-year presidency, including the thinking that went into controversial decisions regarding Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. “Indeed, many issues in contemporary U.S. interventions … were foreshadowed during the Obama years.” The author is a former Congressional foreign policy staffer on foreign policy.
By Van Gosse, The Nation, posted July 13
A succinct accounting of the background and consequences of the Suez Crisis of 1956, which “signaled the end of old-style European imperialism,” and its implications for the role of the US today. “Decades of ‘forever wars’ have not made us safer, and the US should not merely accept but actively support a multipolar world based upon global cooperation at a level never seen before.” The author is a professor emeritus of US history at Franklin and Marshall College and is a co-chair of H-PAD
“Trump’s Attacks on the Smithsonian Are an Attack on American History”
By Marc Stein, Time, Posted July 8
A critique of the Trump administration’s 162-page report “Saving America’s Story,” an attack on the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. “Make no mistake about it: the report represents an attempt to turn the clock back” to oversimplified and long-discredited notions of the American past. The author teaches US history at San Francisco State University and is currently president of the Organization of American Historians.
“Trump Has the Same Huge Obsession That Mussolini Had”
By Una Hadjari, Portside, posted July 5 (from The New Republic)
On Mussolini’s obsession with using architecture to convey the grandeur of fascist rule, and parallels with Trump’s effort to remake Washibngton, DC in his own style. The author is a Rome-based foreign correspondent covering European and Mediterranean politics, nationalism, and historical revisionism.
“Forget the Vietnam War ‘Gap.’ We Have a Real Credibility Chasm Today”
By Gregory Daddis, Responsible Statecraft, posted July 3
The headline is misleading, since only a paragraph is devoted to the Trump administration, whose contempt for truth is well known. What the article does is to tell the story of US government efforts to depict the US war effort in Vietnam as a success, and the gradual unraveling of this official lie. The author is a 26-year Army veteran who teaches US history at Texas A&M University and wrote Faith and Fear: America’s Relationship with War Since 1945 (Oxford U. Press, 2025).
“From National Independence to Global Interdependence”
By Lawrence S. Wittner, LA Progressive, posted July 2
A brief account of the rise and fall of imperialism, to the point where, “for the most part, national independence has become the acceptable norm,” and an argument that present-day problems such as war, nuclear weaponry, disease, and climate change require public pressure on governments to strengthen international cooperation. The author is a professor emeritus at SUNY Albany.
“How Florida’s Cuban Diaspora and the Israeli Lobby Came Together – and Are Coming Apart”
By Greg Grandin, The Intercept, posted July 2
Traces over decades, with nuance, the process by which “a narrow, wealthy Latin American diaspora geographically concentrated in the greater Miami area has captured U.S. hemispheric policy” but is now running into complications. (The Israel lobby mentioned in the title is treated only briefly in the article.) The author teaches history at Yale University and the most recent of his seven books is America, América: A New History of the New World (Penguin Random House, 2025).
“By the Sword: America Was Born Intervening”
By Monica Duffy Toft, Responsible Statecraft, posted June 30
A short essay on foreign intervention as a theme in US history, despite warnings by members of the founding generations against foreign entanglements.” The founders “built the very pattern this essay traces. But they also left a warning against it, and the warning was right even when they were not.” The author teaches International Politics at Tufts University, where she is the founding director of the Center for Strategic Studies at the Fletcher School.
“The Forgotten History of the Civil Rights Movement’s Fight for Economic Justice”
By Nancy MacLean, Hammer & Hope, Summer 2026 issue, published June 23
On the fight against job discrimination as a key component of the civil rights movement’s struggle for equal rights, including in the partially successful effort to include strong guarantees of job rights in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The author teaches twentieth-century US history at Duke University and among her books is Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (Harvard U. Press, 2006).
Thanks to Rusti Eisenberg and an anonymous reader for suggesting articles included in the above list, and to Roger Peace for valuable consulting. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.