History and Memory of Vichy France
Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001).
The Sorrow and the Pity (dir. Marcel Ophuls, 1969). A documentary film based on interviews of former Nazi officers, French collaborators, and French members of the resistance in Clermont-Ferrand.
Le Promeneur du champ de Mars (dir. Robert Guediguian, 2005). Aka The Last Mitterand. Describes the last days of former President of France, who, acccording to the film, dies unable to come to terms with his Vichy past.
Pierre Nora, "Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire," Representations 26 (Spring 1989), 7-24. An influential article on memory and history by a French historian. Nora argues that memory emerges from a crisis of national unity.
Intellectuals in France and in the United States
Pierre Bourdieu, author of numerous works on sociology and cultural theory. Highly respected public figure in France, he questioned the integrity of French intellectuals who frequently appeared on television in a French bestseller entitled On Television. See Philip Kennicott, "For Scholars, a Lesson in Humility," Washington Post, January 26, 2002.
Compare to: Cornel West, who published numberous books on philosophy and African American culture. West also appeared in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, as well as issued his own rap CD, for which he was criticized, and insulted, by Harvard President Lawrence Summers. West subsequently left Harvard to teach at Princeton. See Lynne Duke, "Moving Target: With the Harvard Flak Behind Him, Cornel West Heads to Princeton," Washington Post, August 11, 2002.
Historians and the Public
A blog by Timothy Burke, an African historian at Swarthmore College and author of article on the dilemmas facing US.-based African historians, cited below.
A blog by Michael Berube, a cultural studies scholar at Penn State University, who is also named as one of the "101 Most Dangerous Academics" in the United States in a new book by a conservative critic David Horowitz.
The Michael Bellesiles controversy. Bellesiles is a former professor of history at Emory University, an author of Arming America, winner of the prestigious Bancroft Prize in American history, later retracted. Bellesiles made up many of the key sources cited in his book to prove that "the gun culture" was absent in the United States prior to the Civil War. Bellesiles was ridiculed by the gun lobby.
Edward Said, New York-based Palestinian schoar, author of a classic book Orientalism and active participant in the debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When he died in 2003, many obituaries emphasized the fact that he once threw a rock toward an Israeli guardhouse on the Lebanese border more than his scholarship.
"Outsider" Historians
Thomas Bender, ed., Rethinking American History in a Global Age (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2001). Several articles discuss how difficult it is for foreign U.S. historians to participate in the debates about U.S. history.
Timothy Burke, "Eyes Wide Shut: Africanists and the Moral Problematics of Postcolonial Societies," African Studies Quarterly 7, no. 2-3 (Fall 2003). Burke argues that U.S.-based African historians must accept the gap (in material resources and everyday work conditions) that divides them from African historians who live and work in Africa.
Big Russian Soul website, where you can check if you have what it takes to become a Russian historian.