History

What may come as a surprise to those of us who have learned about the great victory of America winning the space race is that the race was won amid critical bombardment about the money being spent and the rationale behind space exploration.

Renewed debates over history reveal the narratives that conservatives and progressives employ to justify or decry American history. One narrative insists on lionizing historical figures, the other on demonizing them—yet both distract from the ongoing pursuit of the American ideals of justice, liberty, and equality.

Last month was the seventy-fifth anniversary of V-J Day—Victory over Japan, August 14, 1945—the official end of World War II. Yet most Britons prefer to celebrate V-E Day—Victory in Europe, May 8, 1945—the defeat of Nazi Germany. Why so?

Charlie Laderman’s “Sharing the Burden” provides a thoroughly researched and highly compelling account of how the Armenian question acted as a catalyst for an emerging American-British geopolitical alliance and the United States’ rise as a predominant actor in the international arena.

After Japan’s surrender 75 years ago, McCulloch implored Christians and governments to affirm “the dignity of the human person as the image of God” because this principle could determine the world’s fate.

History suffers from an apparently terminal illness—it is quickly dying and dying before our eyes.

“It was inevitable that the final surrender of Japan, ending the costliest war of human history, should be greeted with a delirium of joy all over the world, and in America particularly.”

The fact that Americans have shifted their focus back to domestic concerns isn’t abnormal or un-American. It is the predictable resurgence of the two domestically focused schools of the American foreign policy tradition.

Pandemics have historically been catalysts for political, economic, and social change. From Thucydides, Prokopios, and Ibn Khaldun, historians of the past who lived through the great pandemics of their day charted the ghastly toll of these invisible killers.