Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World

Black History Month
Anna Murray Douglass

The enigmatic first wife of Frederick Douglass, Anna Murray Douglass (1813 – 1822) has been misunderstood and misrepresented by historians as well as by her husband’s associates since he first rose to fame in 1842. Her early life, including her birth, family and parentage, remain thinly documented.

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Lincoln’s finest hour

By James M. McPherson

On August 23, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln wrote the following memorandum and asked his Cabinet members to sign it on the back side of the paper without reading it (to forestall leaks): “This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards.”

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Football mania: some history

To honour that acclaimed American institution, which celebrates its biggest day on Sunday, we look at famous football players – from the Colts and the Bears. Perhaps past greatness will help these teams when they square off on Sunday. Both excerpts are from the American National Biography Online.

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T.S. Eliot: an excerpt

In the New York Times Art Section today, Michiko Kakutani writes about British poet Craig Raine’s new book on T.S. Eliot, calling Raine’s description a “new, more accessible T. S. Eliot, an Eliot he describes as a virtuosic fox in terms of style, and a single-minded hedgehog when it came to themes.”

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