National History Center

May 20: Konrad H. Jarausch on The Berlin Republic: German Unification Twenty-Five Years Later

mbarber — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:05:21 +0000

After the first quarter century of development since the overthrow of Communism and the reunification of East and West Germany, how does one draw up a balance sheet? How can one assess the transfer of political institutions, the economic crises, the difficulties of women’s adjustment? There were substantial developments but also significant failures. Many of the international moves of the Berlin Republic can only be understood on the basis of considering the difficult process of adjustment during and after unification. Konrad Jarausch will explore this process and its effects in the last Washington History Seminar of the semester.

Konrad H. Jarausch is the Lurcy Professor of European Civilization at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Senior Fellow of the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung in Potsdam, Germany. His 40 books cover topics from the First World War to German unification and Germans after the Third Reich. He is now writing a history of European experiences in the twentieth century entitled “Taming Modernity.”

The Washington History Seminar meets at 4 p.m. on Mondays during the academic year at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, 13th and Pennsylvania, NW, in downtown Washington, DC (Federal Triangle stop on the Blue and Orange Metro lines). This session will take place in the 4th floor conference room. Reservations, requested because of limited seating, are accepted beginning one week before the session at HAPP@wilsoncenter.org.

Lecturers for International Seminar on Decolonization Set

mbarber — Mon, 13 May 2013 23:13:50 +0000

The National History Center of the American Historical Association has announced the lecturers who will speak in conjunction with the Eighth International Seminar on Decolonization, July 8 through August 2, 2013.

Elizabeth Borgwardt, associate professor of history and law at Washington University in St. Louis, will give the first public lecture, scheduled for 4 p.m. on Tuesday, July 16, in the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. Her topic will be “Present at the Creation? Human Rights, NGOs, and the Trusteeship Debate at the 1945 UN San Francisco Conference.”

Kenneth Pomeranz, University Professor of History at the University of Chicago and president of the American Historical Association, will deliver the second lecture, scheduled for 4 p.m. on Tuesday, July 23, also in the Jefferson Building. He will discuss differing perceptions of Chinese re-assertion of control over parts of their far west that had threatened to become either independent or dependencies of other empires after the break-up of the Qing dynasty in 1912.

Each talk will be followed by an informal reception. Further details will be released in coming weeks.

C-SPAN Airs NHC Congressional Briefing on Immigration

mbarber — Sun, 12 May 2013 04:44:48 +0000

C-SPAN 3′s American History TV aired the National History Center’s Congressional Briefing, Historical Perspectives on Congress and Immigration Policy, at 5:45 a.m. and 9:45 a.m. EDT Sunday, May 12, and at 1:45 a.m. EDT on Monday, May 13. The program is now available from C-SPAN’s Video Library at Congressional Briefing on Immigration – C-SPAN. A version can also be viewed on the American Historical Association’s YouTube channel at Congressional Briefing on Immigration – AHA.

The briefing took place on April 5, 2013, and features presenters Tyler Anbinder of George Washington University, Alan M. Kraut of American University, and Mae M. Ngai of Columbia University, with moderator James Grossman of the American Historical Association.

James Grossman is Executive Director of the American Historical Association and a member of the History Department faculty at the University of Chicago. His books include Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration. His editing projects include the Encyclopedia of Chicago and the series “Historical Studies of Urban America.” His articles have focused on urban history, African American history, ethnicity, and the place of history in public culture.

Tyler Anbinder is a professor of history at George Washington University. His books and articles about American immigrant life and anti-immigrant sentiment include Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s and the award-winning Five Points: The Nineteenth-Century New York Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World’s Most Notorious Slum.

Alan M. Kraut, University Professor of History at American University and fellow of the Migration Policy Institute, is the prize-winning author or editor of nine books and many articles on immigration, ethnicity, medicine and public health. A past president of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society and chair of the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation’s History Advisory Committee, he is president of the Organization of American Historians.

Mae M. Ngai, Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and Professor of History at Columbia University, is the author of books, articles, and commentary on immigration, including the prize-winning Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. She serves on the executive committee of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race and the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation’s History Advisory Committee.

Center Director Wm. Roger Louis Wins Benson Medal of the Royal Society of Literature

mbarber — Fri, 10 May 2013 20:34:52 +0000

National History Center Director Wm. Roger Louis has won the Benson Medal of the Royal Society of Literature, the oldest literary society in Britain, founded in 1820 to honor “meritorious works in poetry, fiction, history and belles-lettres.” The medal, the society’s highest recognition of lifetime achievement, is awarded, according to the Society, “to those whom the Society feels have given many years of outstanding service to literature.” Past recipients have included Lytton Strachey, Edith Sitwell, E.M. Forster, Wole Soyinka, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Nadine Gordimer.

Louis was singled out for “the enormous contribution you have made to English literature — both through your own writing, and through the support and assistance you have given other writers over several decades.” In addition to his role in founding and directing the National History Center of the American Historical Association, Louis has for nearly 40 years directed the Faculty Seminar in British Studies at the University of Texas, where he holds the Kerr Chair in English History and Culture and chairs the Academy of Distinguished Teachers. The Seminar aids writers from throughout the British empire by providing them opportunities to present their work to American audiences and publishing their contributions in the Adventures with Britannia book series. Louis also assists younger writers at the University of Texas through the Churchill Scholarships.

His own books include the award-winning Imperialism at Bay, 1941-1945 (1977) and The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945-1951 (1984); as well as Ends of British Imperialism: The Scramble for Empire, Suez, and Decolonization: Collected Essays (2006). His major editorial projects include the five-volume Oxford History of the British Empire (1998-99) and the recently completed Volume 3 of the official history of the Oxford University Press.

May 13: Richard Carwardine: Lincoln and Emancipation: Presidential Intent at Home and Abroad

mbarber — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:38:53 +0000

During the American Civil War Abraham Lincoln stated that his paramount object was to save the Union, leading many since to question his reputation as “The Great Emancipator.” Emancipation and the nation’s unity were indivisible in Lincoln’s mind, and it was for the fusion and pursuit of these two ideas that British and other foreign progressives of the time esteemed him so highly. What were the international repercussions of Lincoln’s actions? Even more basically, what were his actual motivations?

Richard Carwardine, previously the Rhodes Professor of American History at Oxford University, and now President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, addressed these questions in a presentation to the Washington History Seminar on May 13. He has a particular interest in the politics and religion of the Civil War era. His political biography, Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power, won the Lincoln Prize in 2004. An essay collection, The Global Lincoln, co-edited with Jay Sexton, appeared in 2011.

A webcast of this session will be available here shortly. C-SPAN will air it as part of their American History TV series. Watch this space for dates and times.

Washington History Seminar Spring Semester 2013 Schedule

mbarber — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:45:18 +0000

Announcing the 2013 Spring Semester schedule for the Washington History Seminar – Historical Perspectives on International and National Affairs. Below are listed the speakers, the dates on which they will be speaking, and their respective topics.

January 28: Eric Foner (Columbia), Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation

February 4: Michael Dobbs (WWC), origins of the Cold War

February 11: Linda Colley (Princeton), written constitutions and global history – (tentatively rescheduled for September 23)

February 18: No meeting: President’s Day

February 25: David Ottaway (WWC), The Arab Revolution

March 4: Charles King (Georgetown), Istanbul in the interwar years

March 11: Robert Townsend (American Historical Association), the end of the historical enterprise

March 18: Samuel F. Wells (WWC), Stalin’s decision for war in Korea

March 25: No meeting: Passover

April 1: Arthur Eckstein (Maryland), Weatherman, Terrorism, and the Counterculture

April 8: Roger Owen (Harvard), the Arab Spring

April 15: Gill Bennett (British Foreign and Commonwealth Office), Britain: Six Moments of Crisis

April 22: Dina Khoury (George Washington), Martyrdom and the Normalization of War in Iraq

April 29: Susan Pedersen (Columbia), Getting Out of Iraq in 1932

May 6: Rachel Swarns (WWC and New York Times), American Tapestry: The Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama

May 13: Richard Carwardine (Oxford), Lincoln and Emancipation: Presidential Intent at Home and Abroad

May 20: Konrad Jarausch (North Carolina and WWC), The Berlin Republic: German Unification Twenty-Five Years Later

(WWC) indicates fellows and senior scholars of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the co-sponsor of the seminar.

The seminar meets Mondays at 4 p.m. at the Wilson Center during the academic year. Reservations, suggested because of limited seating, are accepted one week prior to each seminar at HAPP@wilsoncenter.org.

May 6: Rachel L. Swarns: American Tapestry: The Black, White, and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama

mbarber — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:02:27 +0000

First Lady Michelle Obama’s family – black, white and multiracial – journeyed from slavery to the White House in five generations. Her forbears included slaves who toiled on vast plantations, mixed-race people who lived free for decades before Emancipation, and Irish-Americans who fought for the Confederacy. In this presentation to the Washington History Seminar, Rachel L. Swarns explored an intimate family history that mirrors the bloodlines of countless Americans and reflects the collective story of our changing nation.

Rachel L. Swarns is a correspondent for The New York Times, based in Washington, D.C. She has written about domestic policy and national politics, reporting on immigration and the presidential campaigns of 2004 and 2008. She has also worked overseas for The Times, reporting from Russia, Cuba and southern Africa. In Africa, where she served as Johannesburg bureau chief, she reported on the turmoil in Zimbabwe, the problems of racial reconciliation in South Africa and the civil war in Angola.She currently writes about demographics, social trends and the modern American family.

April 29: Susan Pedersen on Getting Out of Iraq in 1932

mbarber — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:52:57 +0000

Iraq was the single mandated territory—out of fourteen—to achieve independent statehood while still under the jurisdiction of the League of Nations. But what kind of “independence” was this? By coming to an agreement with nationalist elites in Iraq, Britain was able to retain control of crucial economic concessions and military rights in this key region and to avoid further irritating international scrutiny. Overseeing this process, the League’s expert bodies became ever more skeptical of the panacea of independent statehood. We now live in a world in which virtually all territorial units are “states,” but those states often lack capacity. In this presentation to the Washington History Seminar, Susan Pedersen showed how the Iraq experience reveals a modern state system in the making.

Susan Pedersen is Professor of History and James P. Shenton Professor of the Core Curriculum at Columbia University. Her books include Family, Dependence and the Origins of the Welfare State (1993) and Eleanor Rathbone and the Politics of Conscience (2004). She has just completed a study of the impact of the League of Nations on the European colonial regimes.

April 15: Gill Bennett: Six Moments of Crisis: Inside British Foreign Policy

mbarber — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 16:44:36 +0000

To understand how and why past decisions were taken it is essential to look at them from the inside out, not with hindsight. To comprehend the decision-making process, it helps to study specific choices, such as those:

to commit British troops to the Korean War, 1950;

to reverse the Egyptian nationalization of the Suez Canal, 1956;

to apply for British membership of the European Economic Community, 1961;

to withdraw British forces from East of Suez, 1968;

to expel 105 Soviet intelligence officers from the UK, 1971; and

to send a Task Force to the Falkland Islands, 1982.

Gill Bennett was Chief Historian of the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office from 1995-2005, and Senior Editor of the postwar official history of British foreign policy, Documents on British Policy Overseas.

April 8: Roger Owen: Historical Perspective on the Arab Spring

mbarber — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 16:00:10 +0000

Historically, the series of modern revolutions beginning with the American and the French at the end of the eighteenth century led to the attempts to replace ancient and dictatorial systems of government by new, constitutional governments legitimated by a popular election. In the Middle East, a parallel pattern can be seen in the history of the first Middle Eastern constitutional revolutions in the political movements of the 1870s. What did an examination of the role of constitutionalism in the Arab revolutions of 1923-2011 reveal about prospects for constitutional governments in the Middle East? The question was answered in the context of the three Arab revolutions in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, all in the past two years.

Roger Owen is the former Director of the Middle Eastern Centre, St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and the present Professor of Middle Eastern History at Harvard University. His books include The Middle East in the World Economy, (1981) and, with Roger Louis, Suez 1956 (1989). His recent works include Lord Cromer: Victorian Imperialist, Edwardian Proconsul (2004), and The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life (2012).

The seminar convened at 4 p.m. on Monday, April 8, in the 4th floor conference room at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Reservations were requested because of limited seating: HAPP@wilsoncenter.org.

In case you missed it, here is a webcast of the seminar.