HISTORY

“The next Selma procession, on March 21, was celebratory—thousands of singing marchers, ranks of glamorous celebrities in the fore, marching all the way through to Montgomery. That night one of the white marchers, a Detroit mother of five named Viola Liuzzo was shot to death.” “As they were driving along Route 80, a car tried […]

By the summer of 1963, between my Freshman and Sophomore years, I was absorbed reading the life of Gandhi. As I was reading there was nothing about me that was radical. In another era I might simply have read it and internally catalogued it as history – like Tippecanoe and Tyler too – and put […]

It seems clear in retrospect that Truman’s internal policy was motivated at least as much by politics as by real concern. In fact he writes to Pennsylvania Governor George Earle, “People are very much wrought up about the Communist ‘bugaboo’ but I am of the opinion that the country is perfectly safe so far as […]

After Japan’s surrender in August 1945 the Army was once again demobilized and its size is reduced to 554,000 troops. By the war’s end, an estimated 60 million people have died. Russia loses over 14% of her population, over 23 million people. Germany, including Austria, loses between 6,750,000 to 8,800,000, or between 8.0% to 10.5% […]

Then in 1939, Germany invades Poland and then, when Germany invaded France, peacetime conscription was introduced. By the time of Pearl Harbor the U.S. Army numbered 1,640,000. Then in June 1941 Hitler invaded Russia, and they became our ally. The U.S. Army expanded to 8,300,000 men.

In the world outside, Ronald Reagan had settled into his Presidency. After Nixon’s resignation, Gerald Ford assumed office. It was interesting to me – now an ex-resident of Britain – to understand that in a Parliamentary democracy such as the UK or Canada – that would have been Ford’s natural role. The Prime Minister is […]

George W Bush was all things television loved: personable, friendly. Despite a spotty track record of success at his early endeavors, he had the makings of a candidate, at least as far as Karl Rove was concerned, who when they first met described Bush as having “huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flight jacket, […]

Cable news was all over it. Soon we started to see the footage of laser guided smart bombs and cruise missiles fired from destroyers. There were concerns about Iraqi use of chemical weapons and the heat. A little over five weeks later the war was over. For years people complained that Bush stopped short of […]

In 1990 Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and George Bush went on television and announced, “This will not stand.” Sanctioned by the United Nations, George Bush organized a real coalition, like a man of his generation, like the Allies of World War II. Unlike some of my peers, I was more sanguine about this war. Of […]

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