American historians

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines reparations as “the act of making amends, giving satisfaction for a wrong or injury, or helping those who have been wronged”. Coates argues that no one really knows how to go about reparations for African-Americans because so many horrible acts have been done to people of African descent…

by gaining his early fortune through speculation in the French East India Company (Encyclopedia). Historians believe Necker’s largest mistake was financing French aid in the American Revolution without regards to taxation or a means of replenishing the French budget. In response to the growing public debt, Necker released his “Report to the King,” in which he claimed the debt following the American Revolution was 36,000 livres less than what it actually was. Not only did Necker commit a huge…

Historians have had disputes over this for years, what the true definition of the revolution is. Was it truly revolutionary? The Revolutionary war is conservative, and was nothing more than a series of ongoing battles from 1775 to 1783. The citizens of America held onto their old ways for the following decades. A speech made in 1819 by a young African-American who graduated as the valedictorian of his New-York free school states, “Where are my prospects? … Shall I be a mechanic? No one will…

monarchy can coexist. The formation of the Continental Congress, which consisted of delegates from each colony, was thus distinctly of the people and for the collective good. American historian Ray Raphael discusses the particular role of the First Continental Congress in 1774 in his book A People’s History of the American Revolution. Raphael writes about the “Continental Association” created by the Continental Congress. This association, with the help of representatives from local committees…

The Mississippi Improvement Committee is a rather abstruse name for a group advocating women’s rights and rights for all races. The name, and the people behind this group casts a positive light. What McGuire best shows is how this group has been neglected by history and how it has been “left in the footnotes of history.” McGuire states, “Georgia Gilmore and her club (MIA) from Nowhere, “represented more than the actual cash they contributed each week,” B.J. Simms insisted. He continues…

There are two distinct views concerning the involvement of Malcolm X in the American Civil Rights movement from 1959 to 1963. One states that X is an action-based “alternative to Dr. King.” The other stating that he was a setback for the Civil Rights movement due to his views on white people. Malcolm X was a member of the Nation of Islam (NOI), a black nationalist/separatist religious group, from 1948 to 1963. He based his platform on the beliefs and ideologies of the NOI. Elijah Muhammed,…

The novel, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, tells the story of a folksy aristocrat and how he grew to be known as a stereotype of the American Dream instead of the complex, fascinating man he was. Author Gordon S. Wood states that “to recover the historic Franklin, we must shed these modern images and symbols…only then can we go on to understand how the symbolic Franklin was created.” Wood arranges the novel chronologically. He begins with Franklin’s birth like a biography, and…

today think of the United States as a democratic society. This was also the same thought that a man named Alexis De Tocqueville had. Tocqueville was born on July 29, 1805 and died April 16, 1859. He was a French diplomat, political scientist, and historian. Tocqueville was best known for one of his works titled Democracy in America. This was published after he traveled through the United States and people today consider it as an early work of sociology and political science which are some of the…

has always been a huge issue for America in the past. Thomas Borstelmann, the author of “The Cold War and the Color Line”, tried to bring to light the contradiction that was the Cold War to light. The Cold War was all about freedom, but how could Americans fight for freedom when we practiced racial injustice daily. Thomas Borstelmann revealed to us America’s efforts to contain their racial injustice that threatened to destroy the western alliance. This book shows us extensively how the Cold…

Throughout the course of American history, the cause of the Revolutionary war has been highly debated. Although the Americans blame the war on the British, and the need for independence, British historians have focused blame on the american colonists. The specific causes, and the importance of each cause have varied between historians. Although some blame the legislation of the British, other historians find west ward expansion to be the leading cause. During the evolution study of the…