Links to Recent Articles of Interest
“Benjamin Netanyahu’s Abuse of History for Politics”
By Yoram Meital, Informed Comment, posted September 30
Cites multiple inaccuracies in a claim by Netanyahu that Arab conquests of Biblical lands in the seventh century triggered a centuries-long pattern of Muslims repressing Jews in the region. “Netanyahu’s statements, past and present, are not slips of the tongue but part of a calculated effort to reshape the historical record.” The author teaches Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
“Trump Is Trying to Memory-Hole One of the Most Important Images of Slavery”
By Paul Finkelman, Reader Supported News, posted September 29 (from Slate)
The title refers to the well-known photograph of a recently freed slave whose back is covered with welts from whipping. Its exclusion from National Park Service signage is part of a pattern, critiqued by the essay, in which the histories of slavery and the Civil War, are being distorted under presidential orders. The author is a legal historian who is author or editor of more than fifty books, primarily on US legal and constitutional history.
“Robert McNamara Chose Loyalty to the President”
By Julian E. Zelizer, Foreign Policy, posted September 26
A review essay on Philip and William Taubman’s just-published biography McNamara at War (Norton, September 2025), revealing the Defense secretary’s private belief that the US war in Vietnam was unwinnable even as he publicly touted President Johnson’s war policy. “In 2025, this book should be required reading for everyone working in silence in Washington.” The author teaches US history at Princeton University.
“Before There Was Jimmy Kimmel, There Was Jean Muir”
By Clay Risen, Politico, posted September 20
On the workings of the anticommunist blacklist that shadowed American television for most of the 1950s. “The era serves as a reminder that government intrusion on free expression often relies on obedience from the private sector to achieve its goals.” The author is a reporter and editor at the New York Times and author of Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America (Simon and Schuster, 2025).
“Riyadh-Islamabad ‘Islamic NATO’ to Check Israel in Shadow of US Decline”
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment, posted September 19
On the mutual defense pact signed by Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan one week after Israel bombed offices in Qatar, a key US ally in the Middle East. The bombing undermined the credibility of the US “security umbrella” for the Gulf Arab powers and thereby weakened the US position in the region. The author teaches Middle East history at the University of Michigan.
“So You Want a Civil War? Let’s Pause to Remember What One Looks Like”
By David Blight, The New Republic, posted September 17
Responding to right-wing calls for “civil war” in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s murder, the essay grimly describes the carnage (recorded by photographer Matthew Brady in its aftermath) of the one-day Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1962, the bloodiest day of the American Civil War. “Real civil war is never something to invoke rhetorically, much less welcome with expectant violence.” The author teaches US history at Yale University and is a leading authority on the Civil War era.
“Trump’s War on Vagrancy Has a Dark History”
By Kristin O’Brassill-Kulfan, Made by History – Time, posted September 16
A brief history of vagrancy laws, which “were never about addressing thorny public policy problems like homelessness or crime, but instead about using state power to remove “undesirable” people from our communities.” The author teaches history at Rutgers University and is the author of Vagrants and Vagabonds: Poverty and Mobility in the Early American Republic (NYU Press, 2019).
By Jonathan Ort, Portside, posted September 14
Likens the Trump administration’s deportation of immigrants to African countries to the efforts of the antebellum American Colonization Society to pressure free Blacks to forsake the US for the newly established country of Liberia. The author is a PhD student in African history at the University of Chicago.
“Trump’s ‘Chipocalypse Now’ Meme Sends a Message with Deep Historical Roots”
By Joe Lowndes, New Lines Magazine, posted September 12
Argues that American exceptionalism as seen by the American Right is increasingly seen in terms of bloodlines instead of ideals. “What could be more purgative, more exhilaratingly American to his base than avenging the nation with racial warfare in Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, Baltimore, New York and other cities where Trump has vowed to impose martial law?” The author teaches political science at Hunter College, CUNY.
By Joan Wallach Scott, Boston Review, posted September 10.
Links her childhood experience as the daughter of a public school teacher who lost his job in the anticommunist purges of the 1950s to the current situation in higher education. “I am reminded—for a second time in my life—that the stakes we have in a democratic system of education are always under threat and that, for those of us who value it, the fight for its preservation is an urgent, if never-ending, challenge.” The author is a professor emerita of history at Princeton University, specializing in French history and the history of gender.
Thanks to Rusti Eisenberg and an anonymous reader for flagging articles included in the above list and to Roger Peace for valuable consulting. Suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.