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Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2008/01/14/President_at_WarHistorians David Kennedy and Joan Hoff discuss historical attitudes of U.S. Presidents during wartime.-----"Conversations on Presidential Leadership: The President at War" with Tom Brokaw, David M. Kennedy, and Joan Hoff.The Aspen Institute and the Roosevelt House Institute for Public Policy at Hunter College are proud to present a new discussion series during the 2008 election season."Conversations on Presidential Leadership" will inject into the campaign season the Institute's brand of thoughtful, informed, nonpartisan dialogue among some of the nation's most respected historians and contemporary observers of the presidency. - Aspen InstituteDavid M. Kennedy, Ph. D. is the recipient of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in History for his book Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War 1929-1945, the latest addition to the award-winning Oxford History of the United States series. The Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University, he lectures on a wide variety of topics drawn from American history, about issues in higher education, and current events, both domestic and international, where he can bring some historical perspective to bear.Joan Hoff is a Research Professor of History in the Department of History and Philosophy at Montana State University. She is a specialist in twentieth-century American foreign policy and politics and in the legal status of American women. She was executive secretary of the Organization of American Historians from 1981 to 1989. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, includig the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians' Article Prize and the Stuart L. Bernath Prize for the best book on American diplomacy. She is the author of several books including Law, Gender, and Injustice: A Legal History of U.S. Women and Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive. Her latest book is A Faustian Foreign Policy from Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush: Dreams of Perfectability.

Author: ForaTv
Keywords: bush wars waging withdrawal cut run retreat victory iraq stay course warmonger president presidency peace vietnam forat
Added: February 13, 2008

First, a rebroadcast of a conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Richard Ben Cramer about his book "What it Takes", which tells the story of the 1988 presidential campaign (from November 20, 1996). Then, a rebroadcast of a discussion with presidential chronicler and author David Herbert Donald about his book "Lincoln" (from November 1, 1995). Finally, a rebroadcast of a conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin about her book "No Ordinary Time",which tells the story of the remarkable relationship between Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt during World War II (from December 4, 1995).

Author: CharlieRose
Keywords: charlie_rose entertainment charlie rose march
Added: August 27, 2007

The anniversary of the August 6, 1945 bombing of Hiroshima. One might think that by now historians would agree on all the fundamental issues. The reality, however, is just the opposite: All the major issues involved in the decision are still very much a matter of dispute among experts. An obvious question is why this should be so after so many years. Did the atomic bomb, in fact, cause Japan to surrender? Most Americans think the answer is self-evident. However, many historical studies--including new publications by two highly regarded scholars--challenge the conventional understanding. In a recently released Harvard University Press volume drawing upon the latest Japanese sources, for instance, Professor Tsuyohsi Hasegawa concludes that the traditional "myth cannot be supported by historical facts." By far the most important factor forcing the decision, his research indicates, was the Soviet declaration of war against Japan on August 8, 1945, just after the Hiroshima bombing. Similarly, Professor Herbert Bix--whose biography of Hirohito won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction--also writes in a recent article that "the Soviet factor carried greater weight in the eyes of the emperor and most military leaders." Many Japanese historians have long judged the Soviet declaration of war to have been the straw that broke the camels back--mainly because the Japanese military feared the Red Army more than the loss of another city by aerial bombardment. (They had already shown themselves willing to sacrifice many, many cities to conventional bombing!) An intimately related question is whether the bomb was in any event still necessary to force a surrender before an invasion. Again, most Americans believe the answer obvious--as, of course, do many historians. However, a very substantial number also disagree with this view. One of the most respected, Stanford University Professor Barton Bernstein, judges that all things considered it seems "quite probable--indeed, far more likely than not--that Japan would have surrendered before November" (when the first landing in Japan was scheduled.) Many years ago Harvard historian Ernest R. May also concluded that the surrender decision probably resulted from the Russian attack, and that "it could not in any event been long in coming." In his new book Hasegawa goes further: "There were alternatives to the use of the bomb, alternatives that the Truman Administration for reasons of its own declined to pursue." READ MORE HERE: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0803-26.htm

Author: thethinkingblue
Keywords: hiroshima A-Bomb Japan nuclear
Added: August 9, 2007