Latest news with #historians
New York Times
15 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Erasing History in Our National Parks
To the Editor: Re 'Park Workers Flag Displays That 'Disparage' Americans' (news article, July 24): The creation and maintenance of an extensive system of national parks are among the foremost achievements of the American government. But when presenting United States history at these parks, the narrative and context must be honest, even when that history is deeply troubling. As your report demonstrates, that includes the story of the nation's independence as its 250th anniversary approaches. Explaining what happened beginning in 1775-76 has challenged historians and the public practically since the moment of independence: how to explain a revolutionary war fought in the name of liberty but that denied freedom to hundreds of thousands of enslaved people in the states and territories that chose to permit it? This paradox persisted for 90 years and culminated in the terrible civil war that killed more than 700,000 Americans. That is fact, not abstraction. And acknowledging it need not disparage Americans. It can be evidence of exceptionalism, not in the sense of superiority but because it accepts an uncomfortable truth. If an exhibit at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia cannot be honest about this, the result is propaganda, not history. President Trump needs to get past his insecurities if he wants to lead the nation into the future. Steven S. BerizziNorwalk, writer is an emeritus professor of history and political science at Connecticut State Community College, Norwalk. To the Editor: The erasure of U.S. history by executive order is unconscionable and terrifying. What will the Trump administration do about the Manzanar National Historic Site in California, a desolate, isolated World War II incarceration camp where thousands of Japanese American families were forced to live in hastily constructed ramshackle barracks behind barbed wire, watched by armed guards, cut off from the outside world? Their bitter experiences are now preserved and shared there — so that it may not happen again. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Forbes
a day ago
- Politics
- Forbes
A Little Career Advice From Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein statue in Washington, D.C. Many years from now, historians will look back and see Albert Einstein as much a philosopher as they do a scientist. Here's one example of why. For nearly 40 years years, friends of ours hosted a lovely New Year's Eve party where many local friends, who have known each other for what seems to be forever, celebrate together. We're all well into our seventies and eighties, and parties like that are history, but lessons remain. Get a broad-based education Of all the subjects I've addressed over the 22 years I've been writing, the one that came up most at these parties was my series of articles imploring college students (with the support of their parents) to get a broad-based education, not just an intense, narrowly defined four-year vocational training in chemistry, finance, communications, or anything else. Interesting, no? Here's why this is interesting. By now, all of us are way past putting our kids through school, so we've got a deep perspective on it. Not only that, but as I looked around the sixty or so revelers, what I saw was a house full of very successful people: business executives, entrepreneurs, a published novelist, a judge, a doctor and other healthcare professionals, a creative advertising executive, a former mayor and other elected officials, a film festival executive director, IT professional, a couple of professors, school teachers, and the list goes on. What struck me is, we all had something in common; to a man and woman, we all enjoyed the benefits of great liberal arts educations as underpinnings of our specific areas of success. And decades later, we'd all had interesting, successful careers. Proof of the value of being well and liberally educated was all over the place. As a career coach and teacher, I've been strongly critical of the heavy over-emphasis on narrow training while ignoring broad education, of the rising number of college students who are pressured into selecting a major in their freshman year, of teenagers who are being asked to decide what to do for the rest of their lives and then putting the blinders on, of the loss of the opportunity to fill out as human beings. It's only gotten more extreme. Delay the declaration of a major If I had a magic wand to wave over the higher education system, it would be to delay the declaration of a major until a real education has taken place. To those who argue that graduates with degrees in finance, accounting, engineering, and IT are the ones who get the highest paid jobs out of college, I say you're right – in the short term. I also ask you to take a longer view. From the perspective of a career coach, I can tell you that, after years in the workforce, these things tend to level off, for a very compelling reason. Leadership demands – among other things – perspective, versatility, multi-dimension, a sense of social responsibility, and an identification with global citizenship. So go ahead and get into chemical engineering if that's your interest, but while you're at it, take courses in literature, history, logic, ethics, world affairs, writing, psychology, sociology, and – for sure – a foreign language. Starting a career well is one thing. To keep rising is entirely another. From the perspective of just one person at a great party, I can point to example after proven example of this point. Take it from Einstein, if you must Now let me elevate this point. Coincidentally, I've been reading Ideas and Thoughts by Albert Einstein. Published a year before his death, it's a collection of many of his papers, letters, and lectures. In a 1952 essay entitled 'Education for Independent Thought' published in The New York Times, he wrote: 'It is not enough to teach man a specialty. Through it he may become a kind of useful machine but not a harmoniously developed personality. It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and of the morally good. Otherwise he – with his specialized knowledge – more closely resembles a well-trained dog than a harmoniously developed person. He must learn to understand the motives of human beings, their illusions, and their sufferings in order to acquire a proper relationship to individual fellow-men and to the community. 'These precious things are conveyed to the younger generation through personal contact with those who teach, not – or at least not in the main – through textbooks. It is this that primarily constitutes and preserves culture. This is what I have in mind when I recommend the 'humanities' as important, not just dry specialized knowledge in the fields of history and philosophy. 'Overemphasis on the competitive system and premature specialization on the ground of immediate usefulness kill the spirit on which all cultural life depends, specialized knowledge included. Independent critical thinking 'It is also vital to a valuable education that independent critical thinking be developed in the young human being, a development that is greatly jeopardized by overburdening him with too much and with too varied subjects (point system).' Adamant as I've been on this subject, if I haven't made my point well enough or often enough, I should think 'Education for Independent Thought' does. Useful machine, well trained dog, or harmoniously developed person. The choice is all yours.
Washington Post
6 days ago
- Science
- Washington Post
Shipwreck of Revolutionary War frigate resurfaces on Scottish beach
LONDON — Ferocious winter storms are not unusual on the remote island of Sanday, jutting off Scotland's northern coast. But when a storm buffeted a beach there last year, a long-buried surprise was revealed beneath the sand: A 30-foot-long wooden shipwreck. The mystery of the oak hull's provenance was revealed Wednesday by a team of archaeologists and historians: The wreck was probably HMS Hind, a British frigate that once fought in the American Revolutionary War and sank off the island over 230 years ago.
BBC News
6 days ago
- Science
- BBC News
Gaps in what we know about ancient Romans could be filled by AI
A new AI tool has the potential to turbocharge our understanding of all human history, researchers intelligence has already been used to fill in gaps in ancient Roman scrolls, but a new system goes much can fill in missing words from ancient Roman inscriptions carved on monuments and everyday objects, as well as dating and placing them often introduces errors in its analysis of even simple modern texts, so there are concerns that relying too much on this technology might distort rather than enhance our understanding of history. But historian Prof Dame Mary Beard of Cambridge University has described the technology as potentially "transformative" to our study of past said that the system, called Aeneas, after a Greek and Roman mythological figure, could accelerate the rate at which historians piece together the past from ancient texts."Breakthroughs in this very difficult field have tended to rely on the memory, the subjective judgement and the hunch/guesswork of individual scholars, supported by traditional, encyclopaedic databases. Aeneas opens up entirely new horizons." Ancient inscriptions are usually incomplete, of unknown origin and date, and often all three. Historians and classicists attempt to fill in the blanks by drawing on texts that are similar in wording, grammar, appearance and cultural setting, known as 'parallels'. Ancient inscriptions tend to be formulaic so historians can often infer what the missing part of a sentence goes on to process is painstaking and can take months and years but opens new vistas in our understanding of the past, according to Dr Thea Sommerschield, an historian at Nottingham University, who co-led the research."Inscriptions are the earliest forms of writing. They are so precious to historians because they offer first-hand evidence for ancient histories, languages and societies."But they degrade over the centuries and interpreting them is like solving a gigantic jigsaw puzzle with tens of thousands of pieces, of which 90 per cent are lost." It's not the first time AI has been used to join up the missing dots in Roman this year, another team of scientists digitally "unwrapped" a badly burnt scroll from the Roman town of Herculaneum using a combination of X-ray imaging and AI, revealing rows and columns of Sommerschield developed Aeneas along with her co-research leader Dr Yannis Assael, an AI specialist at Google DeepMind. It automates the process of contextualising based on parallels, in the blink of an eye. Aeneas draws on a vast database of of 176,000 Roman inscriptions including images and uses a carefully designed AI system to pull up a range of relevant historical parallels, to support the work of historians, according to Dr Assael."What the historian can't do is assess these parallels in a matter of seconds across tens of thousands of inscriptions, and that is where AI can come in as an assistant."The team tested out the system in dating a famous Roman text at the Temple of Augustus in Ankara in Turkey, known as the queen of inscriptions because of its importance to our understanding of Roman history. The Res Gestae Divi Augusti was composed by the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, giving an account of his life and accomplishments. Its date is hotly contested among was able to narrow down the options to two possible ranges, the most likely being between 10 and 20 CE and a second slightly less likely range from 10 to 1 BCE. This showed the system's accuracy as most historians agree on these two as the most likely possibilities. In tests of the system with 23 historians the team found that an historian working with Aeneas came up with more accurate results than either Aeneas on its own or an historian on their own. "The feedback was that Aeneas was not only allowing the historians to accelerate their work but it also revealed parallels that they had previously not identified," according to Dr Sommerschield."And that is the future value of this work, not just to do what we do faster and better but also to do things we didn't think to do before."AI interpretation of even modern texts can be glitchy, so there is concern that mistakes could be made. But according to Dr Assael, Aeneas is a tool to guide historians, not a replacement for them."We acknowledge that AI might not be able to get everything right all the time and I don't think historians will work under that expectation," he said it would be down to human historians to weigh up Aeneus' predictions and decide which made more sense.
The Independent
15-07-2025
- The Independent
Nearly century-old lodge destroyed for a second time
The Grand Canyon Lodge, a nearly century-old historic structure on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, was destroyed by a wind-whipped wildfire. The lightning-caused wildfire, which started on July 4, rapidly consumed the lodge and dozens of other structures after winds shifted. Designed in 1927, the lodge was the only accommodation on the North Rim and was cherished for its magnificent views and tranquil atmosphere. The destruction has devastated many visitors and historians who considered the lodge an intrinsic part of the park's history and appeal. This is not the first time the lodge has been destroyed; it burned down in 1932 and was rebuilt in 1938, leading to optimism that it will be regenerated again.
