Archive for the ‘Historians’ Category

Henry Adams was a descendant of the iconic Adams family of presidents and statesmen, and while making his journey into the historical profession was more natural than most, he desperately wanted to be a politician but failed. Adams greatly influenced future noted historian Carl Becker. Though the scientific method was radically changing ... Full story

FBI "File No. 100-360217 was begun in March 1949 in response to an order from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to Edward Scheidt, special agent in charge of the Bureau's New York office. Zinn's name had previously surfaced in connection with other FBI investigations of Communist Party activities, but a new report ... Full story

Edmund Fisk Green (better known as John Fiske) was educated at Harvard and is a key “transitional” historian as he is sometimes compared with Bancroft as well as the scientific historians we will look at shortly. Though a believer in American progress (that he coined as “progressiveness”) Fiske rejected the Calvinism of Bancroft and instead was a ... Full story

The idea of progress in American society and history is as old, perhaps, as the founding of this great country. In the study of American history the idea of progress has played a key role in the evolution of historical scholarship. This paper will seek to ... Full story

I found this article today in the Chicago Tribune written a week or so ago by Cory Franklin who was motivated to write a piece on teachers when he received word that one of his favorite history teachers had passed away. The opinion piece at first led me in a completely incorrect ... Full story

Since 2002 Franklin Delano Roosevelt has ranked number one in New York’s Siena College Research Institute Survey of U.S. Presidents, which ranks the best Commander-in-Chiefs of all time in a number of different categories, and has done so five times. I'll let the list speak for itself: 1. Franklin D. Roosevelt 2. Theodore Roosevelt 3. ... Full story

Please post your comments if you have some useful input!! Fellow reader Drew Armstrong notified me of an "unknown object" that was found near Palatka, Florida, and the St. John's River. The object appears to from the Civil War era and at first guess I was thinking a sub-terra torpedo such as the ones I investigated during my research of the Battle of Fort Blakely. However, ... Full story

As those of you who have been visiting here for the last, what, 4 years note that the emphasis has changed from the "American Civil War" to United States history in general. As you also may know for several years now I have been placing my Civil War focus over at SoldierStudies.org ... Full story

Loyal readers of B4H know that Chris and me are both in graduate school. I'm not sure how Chris's experience is in the load of reading that he had in his undergraduate experience compared to his graduate one, but I know that for me the load is less in graduate school than it was ... Full story

This looks like a great event, and as most of you know. I am a student at American Public Univsersity and Dr. Woodworth is current one of my instructors. Well they have a great event coming up: Discovering the Civil War Online - Live Webcast. From their website: Have you ever ... Full story

Brigham Young University sent me the following results of a study that analyzed pension and medical records from a random sample of the 179,000 black soldiers enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War and found some interesting, though not surprising results. The study was performed by Sven E. Wilson ... Full story

Here's an interesting question: "If a piece of the presidential record remains stowed in a drawer, is it history or history waiting to happen?" The discovery of a previously unknown personal letter by Thomas Jefferson this past December, written sometime in 1808 towards the end of his presidency, was the impetuous for such ... Full story

A Time Capsule was unearthed that was buried about 1850, from the news piece: Athol (Massachusetts) Historical Society President Susannah Whipps-Lee said the time capsule — which has yet to be opened — was made from an old glass container that looked like a pickle jar with a rusted metal screw top. It ... Full story

I mean this sincerely. I am saddened by the passing of Howard Zinn. From the Associated Press: Howard Zinn, the leftist academic whose alternative history of the United States became required reading for millions of ordinary people, as well as a following of celebrities, has died. He was 87. Zinn's death was confirmed by his website, ... Full story

How do I connect the title of the post... Henry A. Kissinger was sworn in on September 22, 1973, as the 56th Secretary of State, and since that moment was one of those politicians whom people have loved to hate. Just do a Google search and there are all kinds of interesting websites; one even shows ... Full story

I guess I am implying that some see him as not a "Disaster" and I think that to be the case, he has defenders does he not? I am in the middle of a course on American Civil War Command and Leadership, and specifically the Joseph T. Glatthaar book Partners In Command. ... Full story

This week was the beginning of our second semester here in Colorado, and in my A.P. United States history class we changed from a block (95 min) class last semester to a skinny (45 min) class. We are up to the Progressive Movement and have found our numbers shrink from 26 to 12, due to the ... Full story

I took the week off to get some things accomplished that I needed to, so my apologies for a lack of posting, but I have been taking daily assessments of the blogosphere and noted a few things which I will comment on now. There has been some controversy over the History Channel’s upcoming Sunday evening program, ... Full story

I received a few days ago my advanced review copy of Wayne Wei-Siang Hsieh's West Pointers and the Civil War: The Old Army in War and Peace (Civil War America). Hsieh challenges studies that claim field fortifications and defensive positions were to make the decisive difference in battle during the Civil War. Instead, Hsieh argues, there ... Full story

I got a chance to look through my recently arrived copy of John Keegan's book and I am already enjoying it. Some interesting comments just in his introduction alone he writes, "Had the battle gone the other way, as it might so easily have done, the war might have been concluded more quickly and ... Full story