Tag: History

We Band of Brothers…and my Gimongous Army.

“The heavy clay-laced mud behind the cattle pen on Antoine Renault’s farm looks as treacherous as it must have been nearly 600 years ago, when King Henry V rode from a spot near here to lead a sodden and exhausted English Army against a French force that was said to outnumber his by as much as five to one.“

Five to one? One in five? Nobody here gets out alive? Well, perhaps not. Further research into the Battle of Agincourt suggests the fight was fairer than Shakespeare would have us believe. “The historians have concluded that the English could not have been outnumbered by more than about two to one. And depending on how the math is carried out, Henry may well have faced something closer to an even fight, said Anne Curry, a professor at the University of Southampton who is leading the study.“

The Last Dog Diatribes.

“During the discussion, Clinton told his vice president that he was disappointed that Gore had not used him in the last ten days of the 2000 campaign in strategically significant states — Arkansas, Tennessee, New Hampshire, and Missouri…Clinton insisted to Gore that he hadn’t cared about how Gore had referred to Clinton — and his personal scandal — during the campaign. Paraphasing this portion of the conversation, Branch writes that Clinton told Gore, ‘To gain votes, he would let Gore cut off his ear and mail it to reporter Michael Isikoff of Newsweek, the Monica Lewinsky expert.’”

In Mother Jones, David Corn previews some of the interesting tales disclosed in historian Taylor Branch’s forthcoming The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President. “In 1997, after New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote an acerbic column about Clinton and golfer Tiger Woods — maintaining that the the two green-eyed hucksters deserved each other — Clinton told Branch, ‘She must live in mortal fear that there’s somebody in the world living a healthy and productive life.’“

Before Birthers, Birchers.

“So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers — these are ‘either’ the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube?…They are both. If you don’t understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can’t understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.“

In the WP, historian Rick Perlstein puts the latest incarnation of the stark raving right-wing in historical perspective. The difference this time? The media is completely failing at its job. “The tree of crazy is an ever-present aspect of America’s flora. Only now, it’s being watered by misguided he-said-she-said reporting and taking over the forest. Latest word is that the enlightened and mild provision in the draft legislation to help elderly people who want living wills — the one hysterics turned into the ‘death panel’ canard — is losing favor, according to the Wall Street Journal, because of ‘complaints over the provision.’ Good thing our leaders weren’t so cowardly in 1964, or we would never have passed a civil rights bill — because of complaints over the provisions in it that would enslave whites.”

Stampp of Excellence.

“‘He was really a pioneer, demolishing the magnolia and mint juleps view of slavery,” said Eric Foner, a professor of history at Columbia. ‘And the Reconstruction book was in the same revisionist mode, sweeping away myths. Among serious history scholars, nobody is going to go back before Stampp.’” Kenneth Stampp, 1912-2009. (By way of Ted.)

Efficiency and Honesty.




“We all make mistakes. We know we make mistakes. I don’t know any military commander, who is honest, who would say he has not made a mistake. There’s a wonderful phrase: ‘the fog of war.’ What “the fog of war” means is: war is so complex it’s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend all the variables. Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarily.” — Robert McNamara, 1916-2009

“What do I regret? Well, I regret that in our attempt to establish some standards, we didn’t make them stick. We couldn’t find a way to pass them on to another generation.” — Walter Cronkite, 1916-2009.

Everything looks worse in black and white.

They gave us those nice bright colors, they gave us the greens of summers: By way of Dangerous Meta and to commemorate the recent discontinuing of the famous film, Fortune offers up twenty Kodachrome images from its extensive photo archives, including shots by Ansel Adams, Walker Evans, and William Vandivert. The one above, by W. Eugene Smith, dates to 1957.

Forty Years and Counting.

“The cultural climate is far different today, besides. Now, roughly 75 percent of Americans support an end to Don’t Ask, and gay issues are no longer a third rail in American politics. Gay civil rights history is moving faster in the country, including on the once-theoretical front of same-sex marriage, than it is in Washington. If the country needs any Defense of Marriage Act at this point, it would be to defend heterosexual marriage from the right-wing ‘family values’ trinity of Sanford, Ensign and Vitter.”

The NYT’s Frank Rich reflects on the gay rights movement on the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. “No president possesses that magic wand, but Obama’s inaction on gay civil rights is striking. So is his utterly uncharacteristic inarticulateness…It’s a press cliche that ‘gay supporters’ are disappointed with Obama, but we should all be.“

The Serpent on the Staff.

“As a society, we trust doctors to be more concerned with the pulse of their patients than the pulse of commerce. Yet the American Medical Association is using that trust to try to block a robust public insurance option as part of health reform. In fact the A.M.A. now represents only 19 percent of practicing physicians…Its membership has declined in part because of its embarrassing historical record: the A.M.A. supported segregation, opposed President Harry Truman’s plans for national health insurance, backed tobacco, denounced Medicare and opposed President Bill Clinton’s health reform plan.“

And don’t forget Sheppard-Towner: In his column this week, Nicholas Kristof take aim at the powerful American Medical Association. “‘They’ve always been on the wrong side of things,’ Dr. Scheiner told me, speaking of the A.M.A. ‘They may be protecting their interests, but they’re not protecting the interests of the American public.‘”

On the Cusp.

“In the summer of 1959, Allen Ginsberg, the generation’s visionary poet of exuberance and doom, wrote in the Village Voice: ‘No one in America can know what will happen. No one is in real control. America is having a nervous breakdown…Therefore there has been great exaltation, despair, prophecy, strain, suicide, secrecy, and public gaiety among the poets of the city.’ He might as well have written that today.“

In Slate and per his recent book, Fred Kaplan makes the case for 1959 as a Very Important Year, and uses the groundbreaking flight of Luna 1 as that moment’s muse. “[I]t, and the race to space that it triggered, helped create the climate in which all those other breakthroughs were possible or, at least, appealing to a broad population. The breakdown of barriers in space, speed, and time made other barriers ripe for transgressing.” And folks argue space exploration isn’t important…