The Harvard Gazette

” American history

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Jill Lepore, David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History at Harvard University.

Taking big bites of history

A Q&A with Jill Lepore on her hunt for the enigmatic Joe Gould

Arts|

DateJuly 7, 2016

Examining the roots of American ‘chosenness’

News +|

DateJuly 2, 2015

Laurel Ulrich is the 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard University. She is pictured in her home in Cambridge. Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

‘I had the advantage of disadvantage’

How Laurel Thatcher Ulrich caught up with the past

Campus|

DateOctober 22, 2014February 28, 2019

While planning a new Harvard course, Robert M. Beren Professor of Government Eric Nelson began to see the story of the American Revolution quite differently. That difference spurred his new book, “The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding."

Revolutionary thinker

Professor's revisionist study focuses on Parliament

Arts|

DateSeptember 29, 2014

"If you make the humanities available to everyone, everyone has something to say, everyone has something to give, everyone has something to learn," said Harvard lecturer Tim McCarthy of the Clemente Course in the Humanities, a free, nationwide course available to individuals experiencing adverse conditions or economic hardship. McCarthy holds the course's first endowed chair.

Teaching on campus and off

For years, Tim McCarthy has taught students in Dorchester, in a program where he now has an endowed chair

Campus|

DateMarch 25, 2014

“ ‘Few people’s eyes are fellows,’ ” bifocals inventor Benjamin Franklin once wrote to his younger sister, Jane, according to historian and biographer Jill Lepore. “Jane thought of her brother as her second self. They were like a pair of eyes.”

On closer inspection, not such a plain Jane

Lepore uncovers the story of Benjamin Franklin’s sister

Arts|

DateSeptember 11, 2013

Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns showed clips from his latest film, “The Dust Bowl,” and fielded questions from the audience at Boylston Hall on Wednesday. The event was moderated by Robin Kelsey, the Shirley Carter Burden Professor of Photography and chair of the Department of the History of Art and Architecture.

When the sky turned black

Ken Burns discusses new film about ’30s storms that created Dust Bowl

Science|

DateNovember 15, 2012April 16, 2019

Megan Kate Nelson's book is being lauded as the first to bring together environmental and cultural histories to consider the evocative power of ruination as an imagined state, an act of destruction, and a process of change.

Scholar publishes book on Civil War

‘Ruin Nation’ focuses on environmental, architectural destruction of war

Campus|

DateMay 15, 2012July 19, 2019

“I came down expecting to come face to face with torture, and what I found was an American suburb — in communist Cuba!” recalled social studies lecturer Jonathan Hansen on his first visit to Guantánamo Bay. He has written a new book on the history of the notorious naval base.

Whither Guantánamo

Book looks at how U.S. occupation of Cuba’s tip began, evolved

Arts|

DateMarch 8, 2012June 3, 2019

In praising Maya Jasanoff’s “Liberty’s Exiles,” the jury applauded the book’s “impressive archival research, its sweeping conceptualization, perspectives and aims, its enviable prose style and the penetrating insights it yields into its characters’ lives.”

Historian’s book a prize finalist

Jasanoff is one of three vying for George Washington Book Prize

News|

DateFebruary 23, 2012May 15, 2019

In “Telling War Stories: Reflections of a Civil War Historian,” Harvard President Drew Faust explored the meanings the Civil War holds today. The lecture at the Cambridge Public Library kicked off the John Harvard Book Celebration, a recently announced program that will commemorate Harvard’s 375th anniversary.

The Civil War’s allures, and horrors

Faust reflects on her work as historian, kicking off library lecture series

Campus|

DateJanuary 11, 2012

Associate Professor of History Rachel St. John St. John grew up in Southern California, and as a teenager sometimes trekked to Tijuana. “I remember one day thinking, ‘It’s really interesting how the border is one way on this side, and on the other side it’s totally different,’” said St. John, who has written a book on the history of the U.S.-Mexico border.

The line that defines

Professor’s book unearths colorful history of U.S. border with Mexico

Arts|

DateOctober 27, 2011May 3, 2019

“In just a few weeks, the world will mark the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, a fitting time to come together as a community to reflect, to mourn, and to consider the ramifications for the survivors, the nation, and the world,” wrote Homi Bhabha, the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, in a letter to the Harvard community.

Remembering 9/11

Harvard schedules services, panels to draw meaning from tragedy

News|

DateAugust 30, 2011July 25, 2019

Robert D. Putnam, Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy, polled a group of 3,000 Americans in 2006 and again in 2007. The comprehensive surveys, combined with case studies of 13 churches across the country, provided the backbone of his book “American Grace.” What the data showed, Putnam said, is that America is a remarkably devout, religiously diverse, and surprisingly tolerant place.

Church of one

Fewer Americans identify with a particular religion, Putnam finds

World|

DateFebruary 16, 2011May 6, 2019

“People are often surprised when I tell them I’m writing my dissertation on one song. But I’m using ‘God Bless America’ as a lens through which I can look at American history, and the role and function of communal singing in American culture,” says ethnomusicology graduate student Sheryl Kaskowitz.

American tune

Musicology student investigates cultural life of Irving Berlin classic

Arts|

DateJanuary 27, 2011April 18, 2019

“I was amazed by the personal intensity with which the justices pursued their beliefs and views,” said Noah Feldman, whose book “Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices” chronicles the dealings between justices Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, Robert Jackson, and William O. Douglas.

Feeling the pinch

FDR’s ‘Scorpions’ bit and bickered, but got the job done

Arts|

DateDecember 2, 2010April 2, 2019

“Obama is a sophisticated and incisive student of American history, American law, and American political thought,” said James Kloppenberg, author of "Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition."

The measure of the man

Historian Kloppenberg analyzes Obama through his writings

Arts|

DateNovember 4, 2010May 2, 2019

The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History

<h4>Princeton University Press, October 2010</h4><h5>By Jill Lepore</h5>

Arts|

DateNovember 4, 2010

Jill Lepore began working on “The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History” shortly after the election of Scott Brown as the state’s junior senator, which made her realize, “Wow, the tea party is really a pretty powerful political force right here in Massachusetts” — a traditionally liberal state, home of the original Tea Party, and the birthplace of the Revolution.

To the heart of a movement

Historian Jill Lepore shares challenges of reporting on tea party

World|

DateOctober 28, 2010April 30, 2019

His customary persona was of courteous demeanor swathed in a warm Southern accent. Beneath the courtly manner lay strong convictions, and if he thought he was improperly challenged he let you know it. His relationships with his departmental colleagues could be edgy, but they stemmed from the fact that he cared so deeply about the students he taught and the discipline he loved.

David Herbert Donald

Faculty of Arts and Sciences — Memorial Minute

News|

DateOctober 21, 2010

C.S. Manegold (right), a visiting senior lecturer in English at Mt. Holyoke College, speaks about her book, “Ten Hills Farm: The Forgotten History of Slavery in the North."

Slavery in the North, and more

Du Bois Institute hosts fellows' book party

Arts|

DateMay 14, 2010June 14, 2019

Timothy Patrick McCarthy and John McMillian collaborated on “The Radical Reader.”

Rebels to some, achievers to others

Lecturers look kindly on the history of American radicalism

Arts|

DateApril 29, 2010July 24, 2019

Harvard Professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich was honored as the 10th recipient of the John F. Kennedy Medal of the Massachusetts Historical Society. She is the first woman given the award.

Ulrich receives Kennedy Medal

First woman to receive John F. Kennedy Medal of the Massachusetts Historical Society

News|

DateOctober 15, 2009

Two American religious historians appointed to the Faculty of Divinity

Campus|

DateJuly 23, 2009