News
Professor Neeti Nair spoke on the latest incident of Anti-Muslim hate speech in India, and the lack of response from political leadership on NPR's All Things Considered.
India’s Supreme Court steps in after Hindu leaders call for violence against Muslims.
In a recent article in the Indian Express, Professor Neeti Nair writes, "The recent assembly of so-called sadhus at Haridwar in Uttarakhand has called for the mass murder of Muslims. The videos of the vitriolic, hate speeches have now been in circulation for a few days, and have been analysed by the media in some measure. Yet, with Covid surging and election news dominating headlines, this latest avalanche of hate speech has already begun to drop off the front pages of newspapers. We neglect this new low at our peril." For more, click the link below:
The history department congratulates Professor Brian Owensby on the publication of his new book, New World of Gain: Europeans, Guaraní, and the Global Origins of Modern Economy. Here’s a description of Professor Owensby's new book:
“In the centuries before Europeans crossed the Atlantic, social and material relations among the indigenous Guaraní people of present-day Paraguay were based on reciprocal gift-giving. But the Spanish and Portuguese newcomers who arrived in the sixteenth century seemed interested in the Guaraní only to advance their own interests, either through material exchange or by getting the Guaraní to serve them. This book tells the story of how Europeans felt empowered to pursue individual gain in the New World, and how the Guaraní people confronted this challenge to their very way of being. Although neither Guaraní nor Europeans were positioned to grasp the larger meaning of the moment, their meeting was part of a global sea change in human relations and the nature of economic exchange.
Brian P. Owensby uses the centuries-long encounter between Europeans and the indigenous people of South America to reframe the notion of economic gain as a historical development rather than a matter of human nature. Owensby argues that gain—the pursuit of individual, material self-interest—must be understood as a global development that transformed the lives of Europeans and non-Europeans, wherever these two encountered each other in the great European expansion spanning the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.”
Professor William Hitchcock takes readers inside his HIST 2214: The Cold War class in a new blog post through the Office of Engagement.
Take a closer look at the course here: https://engagement.virginia.edu/learn/thoughts-from-the-lawn/Teaching_th...
The Chinese translation of Brad Reed’s Talons and Teeth: County Clerks and Runners in the Qing Dynasty, is out. The book is now in its fourth printing with total sales around 30,000.
Professors Xiaoyuan Liu and Joseph Seeley were interviewed by UVA Today for a recent article on the legacies of the Pearl Harbor attack for US involvement in East Asia. To read the article, click here:
https://news.virginia.edu/content/pearl-harbor-drew-us-not-just-war-all-asia
The November 2021 special issue of The Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient (JESHO), “The Persianate Bazaar,” features key contributions from Professor Fahad Bishara. The collection of essays in this volume examines forms of business documentation in the late Persianate world and the Indian Ocean, between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. In addition to writing the introduction with Nandini Chatterjee, Fahad contributed an article, “The Diver’s New Papers: Wealth, People, and Property in a Persian Gulf Bazaar.”
https://brill.com/view/journals/jesh/64/5-6/jesh.64.issue-5-6.xml?language=en
Grace Hale’s “Cool Town,” which explores the birth of such bands as R.E.M. and the B-52s, was just named this year’s top book on Georgia history by the Georgia Historical Society.
https://news.virginia.edu/content/faculty-spotlight-historian-revisits-a...
Alan Taylor’s American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 was mentioned in an article in The New York Times Magazine detailing long-standing debates about how we tell our national story and what that has to teach us about our current divisions: The 1619 Project and the Long Battle Over U.S. History.
Last month, Caroline Janney was a guest on C-SPAN's American History TV where she discussed her book Ends of War: The Unfinished Fight of Lee's Army after Appomatox, as well as the uncertainties in the military and politics following the end of the Civil War.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?514706-1/ends-war
Caroline also received praise in a Wall Street Journal review for her book as she detailed how Robert E. Lee's surrender became foundational to the destabilizing myth of the "Lost Cause" and for offering a "fresh and disquieting version of Lee’s surrender, adroitly balancing official, political and military decisions with the recollections of the men on the ground who endured – and sometimes defied – its consequences."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ends-of-war-review-the-myth-of-appomattox-1...
Professor Neeti Nair has been appointed to the John W. Kluge Center’s inaugural alumni advisory board to serve two-year terms as Kluge Center ambassadors, helping the Center promote its scholarly opportunities to wider audiences.
In an interview with Town & Country Magazine, Andrew Kahrl discusses the historical struggles of Black families as they looked "to escape from the clutches of predatory conditions within their new neighborhoods."
Last week, Laurent Dubois joined NPR’s 1A to discuss how Haiti is faring after presidential assassination, the aftermath of the recent earthquake, & treatment of Haitian migrants. https://the1a.org/segments/haiti-and-its-migrants-an-update-on-del-rio/
Graduate student Thomas Storrs’ co-authored paper, “New Evidence on Redlining by Federal Housing Programs in the 1930s” was published in the National Bureau of Economic Research: https://www.nber.org/papers/w29244?utm_campaign=ntwh&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntwg12 Congratulations Thomas.
In an interview with NPR, Professor Claudrena Harold attributes crucial contributions of working people to the many facets of development in the US. https://www.npr.org/2021/09/04/1033177379/labor-day-history-triangle-shirtwaste-factory-fire-patco-strike
Laurent Dubois provided insight on Haiti’s earthquake and political future. https://the1a.org/segments/taliban-haiti-cuba/
In a recent blog for Columbia University Press, Professor Justene Hill Edwards reflects on African Americans’ complicated legacy of patriotism.
In a recent op-ed for the Washington Post, Professor Liz Varon explains how the removal of Confederate statues will give us a clearer view of the complex Southern past.
Since the news broke of the assassination of Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, University of Virginia scholars who focus on Haiti have been busy answering media questions about the country.
Three professors whose scholarship focuses on the tumultuous history and politics of this nation – Marlene Daut, Laurent Dubois and Robert Fatton – have been providing background and suggesting possible next steps, but at the same time are surprised at the mystery of who carried out the attack and who’s leading the country, saying it’s a dangerous time for Haiti.