All of Germany was riveted last year by a three-part television miniseries, Generation War—the story of five Germans swept up in the titanic upheaval of World War II. Roughly 7 million viewers tuned in for each episode, sparking national debate in a country that has been grappling with the...
Today we call it influence, clout, “who you know.” It gets junior into the top school, swings the big business deal, gets legislation passed or killed. When exposed, we say it’s unfair and corrupt, and we might even get the law involved. But in France of the 1700s it was the way of the world—at...
What was the black Confederate soldier's myth? Over 150 years after the Civil War, many websites, articles, and organizations still assert that between 500 and 100,000 free and enslaved African Americans willingly served as soldiers in the Confederate army.
Patrick R. Cleburne, a...
Before he even sits down for an interview in an Urbana coffee shop, Mark Leff feels compelled to say something. He gave another writer a similar warning 15 years ago, after being named professor of the year in Illinois by the Carnegie Foundation.
“You hit the jackpot: What has to be the campus’s...
With the recent release of the movie 42, many are reflecting on Jackie Robinson as a symbol that anyone can succeed if given the opportunity. A baseball historian at U of I, however, points out that racial integration of Major League...
When Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation almost 150 years ago, he made ending slavery a Union goal in the Civil War, then more than a year and a half old. Less widely understood is how the demands of war also were destroying slavery from within and dramatically upending southern...
The Irish were essentially America’s first ethnic group, with more than 3 million flooding into the United States between 1840 and 1890. By 1900, in fact, there were more Irish in America than in Ireland.The Irish also became the model for other ethnic groups that followed, says University of...
Darkness truly ruled the night in the Europe of 1500.People feared almost everything about the hours after sunset, says U of I historian Craig Koslofsky.Artificial light was limited and the night was a time of real and imagined danger, of evil, demons...
John Gaffaney was a 56-year-old psychiatric nurse preparing for deployment to Iraq, where he planned to help soldiers cope with the trauma of war. Before he even left U.S. soil, however, he was gunned down in the November massacre at Fort Hood in Texas—one of 13 victims. In a cruel irony, the...
Confetti filled the city’s skies when Rio de Janiero was named the host of the 2016 Olympics, breaking the hearts of Chicagoans and making Brazil the first South American country to host the games. But like so many things in Latin America, the Olympics raise both hopes and fears. “We are...