Outside the Law, a recent film by Rachid Bouchareb, revisits the Algerian War of the 1940s and 1950s.
Students in HIST 390 History and Film: War in Film may be interested in this film, since we will be watching the classic 1965 film, Battle of Algiers, by Gillo Pontecorvo later this semester when we discuss decolonization conflicts.
Milos Stehlik reviews Outside the Law on WBEZ’s Worldview.
William Cronon, a prominent environmental historian at the University of Wisconsin, offers a historical perspective on the ongoing labor crisis in Wisconsin.
In an op-ed in the New York Times, Cronon heavily criticizes the state legislation (currently blocked by a court order) that would strip state employees of their collective bargaining rights.
As we near the 2011 tax deadline, taxation is on many Americans’ minds. As citizens prepare their tax reports, it is important to remember that many corporations pay no taxes. Many major U.S.-based corporations actually have so many tax breaks that they not only pay nothing in taxes—they actually get tax refunds from the I.R.S.
General Electric made $14.2 billion total profits last year (of which $5.1 billion was made in the United States). G.E. paid no taxes on these massive earnings, though. Instead, G.E. claimed a tax return of $3.2 billion!
The New York Times reports today on G.E.’s lobbying efforts to obtain and maintain the tax breaks that prevent the corporation from ever paying any taxes.
Students in HIST 423 French Revolution and Napoleon will recognize strong parallels to the tax policies of Ancien Régime France, where nobles and clergy paid no taxes, despite their control of vast wealth.
A new book by Nicolas Delalande, entitled Les Batailles de l’impôt, examines taxation policies in France from the French Revolution to today. We need more comparative histories of taxation to understand patterns of inequities in tax policies in societies around the world. The field of comparative revolutionary studies could especially benefit from such histories of taxation.
French historian Robert Darnton, who is Director of the Harvard University Library, assesses this week’s court decision throwing out the Google Books settlement in an op-ed in the New York Times.
Darnton’s expertise on the history of the book and of printing gives him a rather unique historical perspective on current projects to build digital libraries.
Students in HIST 423 French Revolution and Napoleon read one of Robert Darnton’s books earlier this semester.
The 100th anniversary of the Triangle Factory Fire disaster in New York is tomorrow. On 25 March 1911, 146 workers were killed at the Triangle Waist Company in Manhattan. The tragedy led to new rules for workplace safety.
NPR offers a remembrance here.
Cornell University has a website on the Triangle Factory Fire at the ILR School.
This is a big year for the Renaissance at the Art Institute of Chicago. A major exhibition on Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France is ongoing at the Art Institute until 30 May 2011.
Another exhibit will be opening next month on Altered and Adorned: Using Renaissance Prints in Daily Life. This show will run from 30 April to 10 July 2011 at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Student in HIST 420 The Renaissance at Northern Illinois University will be interested in both of these shows.
Has the United States recreated the debtor prisons of the early modern period?
A current United States Supreme Court case questions whether some states’ laws on “deadbeat dads” constitute imprisonment for debt.
A NPR story today considers the court case and draws comparisons to early modern debtor prisons.
Are the Unites States and its allies at war in Libya?
As discussed in a recent post, the airstrikes in Libya can be seen as constituting not merely the institution of a no-fly zone but a military intervention in a civil conflict in support of the Libyan opposition groups, especially in Benghazi. The modern practice of states engaging in “military actions.”
The modern practice of engaging in “military actions” and “policing actions” without formal declarations of war creates ambiguities, however. The Obama administration’s claim to be acting to protect Libyan civilians in a humanitarian intervention has created more confusion. Politicians and pundits across the political spectrum are now exploiting the ambiguity over conceptions of a “state of war” in order to score political points.
A piece on NPR examines modern notions of a “state of war” and the processes of instigating warfare. This piece suggests that the military operations in Libya do not (yet) constitute a war. Although I find this piece rather flawed, it does at least open a new arena of discussion on the military intervention in Libya.
Meanwhile, Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations has criticized the airstrikes and no-fly zone in Libya, referring to these operations as a clear military intervention into a Libyan civil war. Listen to Haass’s interview on NPR, and find a summary of the interview here. I do not endorse all of Haass’s assessments of the situation in Libya and find his description of Libya as a “tribal” country highly problematic. However, I do agree with his argument that the airstrikes constitute military intervention in a Libyan civil conflict.
Perhaps we can now move beyond discussion of the no-fly zone, to examine exactly what the military intervention in Libya represents.
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