Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
New York City, five boroughs boasting nine million people occupying an ever-expanding concrete jungle. The industrial hand has touched almost every inch of the city, leaving even the parks over manicured and uncomfortably structured.
By Pippa Holloway
Nearly six million Americans are prohibited from voting in the United States today due to felony convictions. Six states stand out: Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia. These six states disfranchise seven percent of the total adult population – compared to two and a half percent nationwide. African Americans are particularly affected in these states.
By Thomas Jundt
On this day forty-four years ago, some 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and lecture halls for an event billed as a national environmental teach-in—Earth Day.
By Carolyn Lunsford Mears, Ph.D.
Fifteen years ago, 20 April 1999, it happened in my community… at my son’s school. Two heavily armed seniors launched a deadly attack on fellow students, teachers, and staff at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado.
By John C. Pinheiro
Few Americans today would have difficulty imagining a United States where the citizens disagree over the wisdom of immigration, question the degree to which Mexicans can be fully American, and dispute about the value of religious pluralism. But what if the America in question was not that of 2014 but rather the 1830s and 1840s?
Each year the Organization of American Historians gathers for a few days of networking and education, and this year the annual meeting will be held in Atlanta from 10-13 April 2014. This year’s conference theme is “Crossing Borders,” highlighting the impact of migration on the history of the United States. Organizers are encouraging attendees to cross a few professional borders as well — from career level to specialties.
By Stephen Bury
At rare moments in time a library can have a singular impact on history. The recent release of George Clooney’s film Monuments Men (2014) has triggered an interest in the role that the Frick Art Reference Library played in the preparation of maps identifying works of art at risk in Nazi-occupied Europe. For the first time in history a belligerent was taking care of cultural treasures in a war zone.
By Michael Gerhardt
John Tyler remains one of the most interesting, active, and constitutionally significant presidents we have ever had. To begin with, he is the first vice president to be elevated to the presidency because of the death of the incumbent, William Henry Harrison. Harrison died 31 days after his inauguration in 1841.
By Julia F. Irwin
President Barack Obama has proclaimed March 2014 as “American Red Cross Month,” following a tradition started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1943. 2014 also marks the 100-year anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War in Europe. Although the United States would not officially enter the war until 1917, the American Red Cross (ARC) became deeply involved in the conflict from its earliest days.
By Tim Allen
Josephine Baker, the mid-20th century performance artist, provocatrix, and muse, led a fascinating transatlantic life. I recently had the opportunity to pose a few questions to Anne A. Cheng, Professor of English and African American Literature at Princeton University and author of the book Second Skin: Josephine Baker & the Modern Surface, about her research into Baker’s life, work, influence, and legacy.
By Kate Pais
The Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, better known as C-SPAN, has been airing the day-to-day activities of Congress since 1979, for thirty-five years as of this week. Now across three different channels, C-SPAN has provided the American public easy access to politics in action, and created a new level of transparency in public life.
In the 1960s, Coca-Cola had a cocaine problem. This might seem odd, since the company removed cocaine from its formula around 1903, bowing to Jim Crow fears that the drug was contributing to black crime in the South. But even though Coke went cocaine-free in the Progressive Era, it continued to purchase coca leaves from Peru, removing the cocaine from the leaves but keeping what was left over as a flavoring extract.
By Joy Hakim
Surprisingly, in a country that cares about its founding history, few Americans know of Thomas Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom, a document that Harvard’s distinguished (emeritus) history professor, Bernard Bailyn called, “the most important document in American history, bar none.” Yet that document is not found in most school standards, so it’s rarely taught. How come?
This March we celebrate Women’s History Month, commemorating the lives, legacies, and contributions of women around the world. We’ve compiled a brief reading list that demonstrates the diversity of women’s lives and achievements.
By David Ellwood
‘The Americanisation of British politics has been striking this conference season,’ declared The Economist last autumn. ‘British politicians and civil servants love freebies to the US “to see how they do things,”’ reported Simon Jenkins in The Guardian in November.
By Elyse Turr
San Francisco, here we come. Oxford is excited for the upcoming annual conference of the American Society for Environmental History in San Francisco this week: 12-16 March 2014. The theme of the conference is “Crossing Divides,” reflecting the mixed history of the discipline and California itself.