Sixty-seven years ago, on August 6, 1945, the Truman administration dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, instantly killing tens of thousands of men, women, and children, and causing a nuclear catastrophe that took thousands of more lives in the weeks and years that followed. Three days later, on August 9, the U.S. followed up…
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FIRST Truman went to war against Korea without Congress, and I didn’t speak up because the communists had to be stopped. THEN Clinton passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, and I didn’t speak up because innocent people don’t need habeas corpus. THEN Bush passed the USA PATRIOT Act, and I…
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In 2003, Historians Against the War (HAW) seemed a promising opportunity to bring together antiwar historians of all political persuasions. And, in fact, many libertarian historians joined with liberals, socialists and others on the left to oppose the war. Such an ecumenical political organization had rarely appeared in American history since the demise of…
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The latest ratings of presidential greatness tells us more about the priorities of historians than it does about the presidents. The following were rated as the greatest presidents: Lincoln, Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, and Harry Truman. There is merit to the high rating for Washington. As to the others, they include a…
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I note with sadness that today is the sixty-third anniversary of the U.S. explosion of an atomic bomb over Nagasaki, Japan. The explosion killed an estimated 40,000 to 75,000 persons immediately, and perhaps as many as 80,000 died by the end of 1945 from the effects of their wounds and radiation sickness. Nearly all…
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