Category / Faculty

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Professor Mary L. Dudziak in ‘Politico Magazine’

Professor Mary L. Dudziak, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law and associated faculty in the History Department, recently contributed to a piece in Politico Magazine titled “9/11: What Would Trump Do?” The article features foreign policy and counterterrorism experts, historians, Trump biographers, and psychologists predicting how presidential candidate Donald Trump would respond to a national security crisis. View the full article here and check out an excerpt of Dr. Dudziak’s response below.

The Trump campaign has already generated international criticism for its hostility to Muslims and Mexican immigrants. His inflammatory calls for the use of torture would damage U.S. credibility on human rights. If history is any lesson, Trump would alienate American allies with these policies, undermining U.S. efforts to work together with other countries to combat transnational terrorism.

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History Graduate Students Curate Exhibition “Changing Atlanta: 1950-1999: The Challenges of a Growing Southern Metropolis”

A new exhibition designed to explore the city of Atlanta’s rapid growth in the second half of the twentieth century is on view in the Robert W. Woodruff Library on the Emory campus through June. Titled “Changing Atlanta 1950-1999: The Challenges of a Growing Southern Metropolis,” the exhibit and corresponding events were co-curated  by Erica Bruchko, W. Michael Camp, and Louis Fagnan (along with Kristin Morgan and Laura Starratt of the Rose Library). The exhibition highlights the rich collections pertinent to Atlanta’s urban history housed at the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.

A panel discussion (free and open to the public) will take place on Tuesday, April 12 at 6:30 p.m. in the Jones Room in the Woodruff Library. The discussion will include opening remarks by Joseph Crespino, Chair and Jimmy Carter Professor, and closing remarks by Edward Hatfield, a History Department alumnus and instructor at Kennesaw State University. Read more about the event here.

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Professor Joseph Crespino on ‘Political Rewind’

Joseph Crespino, Jimmy Carter Professor of American and Southern History, recently appeared on Georgia Public Broadcasting’s show Political Rewind. Crespino draws historical parallels and offers context for other lively U.S. presidential races throughout the twentieth century. Listen to the broadcast,”Donald Trump, George Wallace and the Ghost of Contested Conventions Past,” here.

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Dr. Leslie M. Harris Offers Historical Insight at White House Screening of “Underground”

Dr. Leslie M. Harris, Associate Professor in the Department of History, recently lead off a panel discussion at the White House related the release of a new television drama titled “Underground.” The WGN America series tracks the story of the Underground Railroad and premiers this week. Harris’ scholarship, including her first book In the Shadow of Slavery, has helped to reshape prevailing conceptions the history of slavery in the United States, including its manifestation in the North and the importance of urban centers. Read the full story about Harris’ participation in the panel discussion here.

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Joseph Crespino Discusses Jimmy Carter’s Legacy on Georgia Public Broadcasting

Joseph Crespino recently contributed to “A Millennial Look at Jimmy Carter,” a piece about changing perceptions of the former president and his legacy over time. Authored by Sam Whitehead for Georgia Public Broadcasting, the story includes commentary by Crespino, Julian Zelizer of Princeton, and Steve Hochman of the Carter Center. Read/listed to the full story here.

“We remember Carter as a one term president, but his presidency had significant achievements,” said Joseph Crespino, who teaches history at Emory University. “The re-negotiation of this historic treaty with Panama, and issues over the Panama Canal was a major achievement,” said Crespino. “So too with Camp David, of course. Who has done more to bring peace to the Middle East when you think about a legacy of American presidents over the last 50 years?”

 

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Andrade’s ‘The Gunpowder Age’ Reviewed in The Wall Street Journal

Tonio Andrade‘s The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History (Princeton 2016) was reviewed by Jeffrey Wasserstrom in The Wall Street Journal on January 29, 2016. The article, available here, is titled “Flying Rats and Festive Fireworks.” Wasserstrom’s appreciative review describes the The Gunpowder Age as marking “a major contribution to a significant area of academic concern while opening the eyes of non-specialists.”

The description of The Gunpowder Age from Princeton University Press follows:

The Chinese invented gunpowder and began exploring its military uses as early as the 900s, four centuries before the technology passed to the West. But by the early 1800s, China had fallen so far behind the West in gunpowder warfare that it was easily defeated by Britain in the Opium War of 1839–42. What happened? In The Gunpowder Age, Tonio Andrade offers a compelling new answer, opening a fresh perspective on a key question of world history: why did the countries of western Europe surge to global importance starting in the 1500s while China slipped behind?

Historians have long argued that gunpowder weapons helped Europeans establish global hegemony. Yet the inhabitants of what is today China not only invented guns and bombs but also, as Andrade shows, continued to innovate in gunpowder technology through the early 1700s—much longer than previously thought. Why, then, did China become so vulnerable? Andrade argues that one significant reason is that it was out of practice fighting wars, having enjoyed nearly a century of relative peace, since 1760. Indeed, he demonstrates that China—like Europe—was a powerful military innovator, particularly during times of great warfare, such as the violent century starting after the Opium War, when the Chinese once again quickly modernized their forces. Today, China is simply returning to its old position as one of the world’s great military powers.

By showing that China’s military dynamism was deeper, longer lasting, and more quickly recovered than previously understood, The Gunpowder Age challenges long-standing explanations of the so-called Great Divergence between the West and Asia.
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Brian Vick Wins Hans Rosenberg Prize from the Central European History Society

Brian Vick, Associate Professor of History, recently won the Hans Rosenberg Book Prize from the Central European History Society. The award honors the best book in central European history published in English by permanent residents of North America. Vick received the award for The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon (Harvard UP, 2014). Below is Prof. Vick’s description of the project.

“My most recent research explores questions of European culture and political culture at the Congress of Vienna, including the political engagement of women, the development of liberal and conservative politics, and the role of religious revival. This work also sounds the cultural and political meanings of the celebratory spectacle and display surrounding Napoleon’s defeat and the return of peace at the close of the wars against Napoleon, and it spotlights such less-studied but important aspects of Congress diplomacy as the struggles over Jewish rights in Germany, abolition of the African slave trade, and the problem of the Barbary corsairs…Along with related articles and essays, this work reassesses the nature and direction of European culture and political culture in their period of transition between the revolutionary era and the nineteenth century.”

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Political Drama in Brazil: Jeffrey Lesser in ‘Time’ Magazine

Dr. Jeffrey Lesser, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of History, was recently quoted in Time magazine. Lesser offers commentary on the current Brazilian political crisis and citizens’ attitudes toward the government. An excerpt from the article, “The Dramatic Power Struggle Behind Impeachment in Brazil,” is below.

Cunha’s decision this week to approve impeachment proceedings against Rousseff, on the grounds that she improperly used state bank funds to cover a budget shortfall, is rooted in the pair’s bitter yet symbiotic fight for survival, one that could take them both down. “Brazilians are angry at Cunha as they think he broke the law to enrich himself,” says Jeffrey Lesser, a professor of Brazilian history at Emory University. “But they are angry at Dilma for allowing this to happen, even if she did not herself steal.”

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Carol Anderson on the Racial Past of the University of Missouri

Dr. Carol Anderson, Samuel Candler Dobbs professor and chair of African American Studies here at Emory, recently authored a piece in The Conversation titled “The long and troubled racial past of Mizzou.” Professor Anderson’s article draws on her experience as a professor at the University of Missouri (1996-2008), along with her research and teaching expertise on public policy and the ways that domestic and international policies intersect through the issues of race, justice and equality in the United States.