Howard Zinn Dies at 87

in History | January 27th, 2010

Sad news. Howard Zinn, the Amer­i­can his­to­ri­an best known for his book, A Peo­ple’s His­to­ry of the Unit­ed States, died today of a heart attack at the age of 87. The Boston Her­ald has more on his life and pass­ing here. If you’re famil­iar with Zin­n’s biog­ra­phy, you’ll know that he served in World War II and lat­er took a strong posi­tion against the Viet­nam War. So, per­haps fit­ting­ly, we fea­ture Zinn talk­ing above about wars and the role gov­ern­ments play in man­u­fac­tur­ing them…

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A History of the World in 100 Objects

in Art, History | January 26th, 2010

Work­ing with the BBC, Neil Mac­Gre­gor, the Direc­tor of the British Muse­um, has launched a down­right smart project. A His­to­ry of the World in 100 Objects uses impor­tant pieces from the muse­um’s col­lec­tions to recount the long his­to­ry of human­i­ty. Through­out the year, the seri­al­ized radio pro­gram will air 100 episodes, each aver­ag­ing 15 min­utes, and they will cov­er two mil­lion years of human inno­va­tion and artis­tic cre­ation. Below, I’ve includ­ed a recent episode that revis­its the Oldu­vai hand axe, a tool invent­ed some 1.2 mil­lion years ago that proved vital to human evo­lu­tion and our migra­tion out of Africa. You can access the full series in audio via iTunes, RSS Feed, as well as oth­er for­mats found here. A big thanks to Stephen in the UK for flag­ging this pro­duc­tion for us.

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The History of the Seemingly Impossible Chinese Typewriter

in History, Stanford, Web/Tech | January 26th, 2010

The Chi­nese lan­guage has tens of thou­sands of char­ac­ters, and many have con­sid­ered it near­ly impos­si­ble to fit these char­ac­ters onto a sin­gle work­able type­writer. But that has­n’t stopped inven­tors from try­ing … and, to a cer­tain degree, suc­ceed­ing. Stan­ford his­to­ri­an Thomas Mul­laney is now writ­ing the first his­to­ry of the Chi­nese type­writer, and he has found evi­dence for numer­ous patents and pro­to­types that incor­po­rate the most com­mon­ly used char­ac­ters. In addi­tion to mak­ing a polit­i­cal impact in Chi­na, these machines have also poten­tial­ly influ­enced inno­va­tions in mod­ern com­put­ing. You can read more about Mul­laney’s work on Stan­ford’s Human Expe­ri­ence web­site, and also watch him dis­cuss his work in this YouTube clip.

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Jared Diamond Explains Haiti’s Enduring Poverty

in Current Affairs, History | January 21st, 2010

Jared Dia­mond, the Pulitzer Prize-win­ning author of Guns, Germs & Steel (and Col­lapse: How Soci­eties Choose to Fail or Suc­ceed), offers some time­ly thoughts on why Haiti, once a fair­ly pros­per­ous coun­try, has sunk into endur­ing pover­ty — a con­di­tion not com­par­a­tive­ly shared by its neigh­bor on the same island, the Domini­can Repub­lic. Accord­ing to Dia­mond, Haiti’s envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions offer a par­tial expla­na­tion. But you will also find clues in the coun­try’s lan­guage, and in the lega­cy of slav­ery that has shaped Haiti’s eco­nom­ic rela­tion­ship with Europe and the US. This inter­view — quite a good one — aired this morn­ing in San Fran­cis­co. You can lis­ten to it below, or access it via MP3,  iTunes or RSS Feed.

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I Have a Dream

in History | January 18th, 2010

For MLK’s birth­day, we bring back the full “I Have a Dream” speech, deliv­ered at The Lin­coln Memo­r­i­al on August 28, 1963. Sev­en­teen elo­quent and brave min­utes that changed the world and made it a bet­ter place.

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What Would MLK Say About the USA Today?

in Current Affairs, History, Stanford | January 15th, 2010

What would Mar­tin Luther King Jr. think about Amer­i­ca in 2010? Few would know bet­ter than Clay­borne Car­son, the Stan­ford his­to­ri­an who directs the Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. Research and Edu­ca­tion Insti­tute. In this talk, Car­son describes MLK’s like­ly thoughts about Amer­i­ca dur­ing the Great Reces­sion. King cared deeply about eco­nom­ic jus­tice, and it’s clear that King would­n’t have looked unam­biva­lent­ly upon the inequal­i­ties that the finan­cial melt­down made so glar­ing­ly obvi­ous. Next week, the U.S. will cel­e­brate King’s birth­day and bankers will col­lect their record-set­ting bonus­es …

Note: Clay­borne Car­son is cur­rent­ly hold­ing Open Office Hours on Stan­ford’s Face­book Page. Be sure to vis­it. Also, Pro­fes­sor Car­son has taught an online course that you can freely down­load. It’s called African-Amer­i­can His­to­ry: Mod­ern Free­dom Strug­gle, and you can find it on YouTube and iTunes. It’s also the first course that appears in our col­lec­tion of Free Cours­es.

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Talking American History with Joseph Ellis

in History | December 23rd, 2009

Let me quick­ly call your atten­tion to an inter­view with Joseph Ellis, the Pulitzer Prize-win­ning and best­selling his­to­ri­an, who most recent­ly pub­lished Amer­i­can Cre­ation: Tri­umphs and Tragedies in the Found­ing of the Repub­lic. In this casu­al, wide-rang­ing con­ver­sa­tion (lis­ten below or here) with Russ Roberts, the host of Econ­Talk, Ellis talks through the found­ing years of the Unit­ed States — the break with Eng­land, the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War, the draft­ing of the con­sti­tu­tion and the forg­ing of the nation. A good con­ver­sa­tion for his­to­ry buffs, and an infor­ma­tive talk for those less famil­iar with Amer­i­ca’s begin­nings. You can gen­er­al­ly find Econ­Talk (which typ­i­cal­ly focus­es on eco­nom­ics) here: iTunes – RSS Feed – Web Site.

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Google to Provide Virtual Tours of 19 World Heritage Sites

in Google, History | December 5th, 2009

On Fri­day, I men­tioned that you can now vis­it the Roman ruins at Pom­peii, Stone­henge and Ver­sailles via Google Street View. What I did­n’t real­ize is that this looks to be part of a larg­er ini­tia­tive, a larg­er attempt to pro­vide dig­i­tal tours of impor­tant world her­itage sites. Accord­ing to this UNESCO announce­ment, 19 his­tor­i­cal sites will be includ­ed, and I’ve list­ed them below. The video above offers more details.

“Spain: San­ti­a­go de Com­postela (Old Town); Old Town of Cáceres; His­toric Walled Town of Cuen­ca; Old City of Sala­man­ca; Old Town of Ávi­la with its Extra-Muros Church­es; Old Town of Segovia and its Aque­duct; His­toric City of Tole­do France: Palace and Park of Ver­sailles; Paris, Banks of the Seine Italy: Archae­o­log­i­cal Areas of Pom­pei, Her­cu­la­neum and Torre Annun­zi­a­ta; His­toric Cen­tre of Siena; His­toric Cen­tre of Urbino; His­toric Cen­tre of San Gimignano Nether­lands: Mill Net­work at Kinderdijk-Elshout Czech Repub­lic: Holy Trin­i­ty Col­umn in Olo­mouc; His­toric Cen­tre of Český Krumlov; His­toric Cen­tre of Prague Unit­ed King­dom: Stone­henge, Ave­bury and Asso­ci­at­ed Sites; Roy­al Botan­ic Gar­dens, Kew”

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