Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
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How Americans Described Evil Before Hitler

Commentators compared the Nazi leader to Napoleon, Philip of Macedon, and Nebuchadnezzar.
Freedom Hill historic marker half underwater in a flood.

The Water Next Time?

For generations, a North Carolina town founded by former slaves has been disproportionately affected by environmental calamity.
Drawing of the caning of Sumner.

Raising Cane

The violence on Capitol Hill that foreshadowed a bloody war.
Drawing of dinosaurs fighting.

The Surprising History (and Future) of Dinosaurs

For well over a hundred years, paleontology has done double duty as mass entertainment.

MacArthur's Last Stand Against a Winless War

MacArthur leaned on JFK to stay out of Vietnam. Had Kennedy survived, might history have been different?

The Suffocation of Democracy

Trump is not Hitler and Trumpism is not Nazism. Still, we are witnessing a story that's unlikely to have a happy ending.

Don’t Despair About the Supreme Court

In 2005, Howard Zinn explained why it was naive to depend on the Court to defend the rights of marginalized Americans.

Indians, Slaves, and Mass Murder: The Hidden History

Two historians shed light on the atrocities of Native American enslavement and genocide.

Being Morally Serious About the Supreme Court

What sorts of youthful transgressions are forgivable, and which are disqualifying, for which jobs?

Who is Dead?

What constitutes death is based on more factors than those that are medical.

What Became of the Taíno?

The Indians who greeted Columbus were believed to have died out. But a search for their descendants yielded surprising results.

Columbus Day Is the Most Important Day of Every Year

Acknowledging the truth about colonialism is crucial if we want to comprehend the world around us today.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Progressives and the Court

A response to Samuel Moyn’s “Resisting the Juristocracy.”

We Really Still Need Howard Zinn

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on why it's so important to tell the stories of people who have fueled social justice movements.

No Law Without Politics (No Politics Without Law)

The way to address politicization in the courts is not de-politicization but counter-politicization.

Cruel and Usual

Proponents believe lethal injection to be a medical marvel, but in reality it’s junk science.

Green and Pleasant Land

A review of four books that all deal with the long-lasting contradictions between the mythology and reality of farming.

The Long, Strange History of the Presidential Text Alert

The presidential text that hits your phone Wednesday will be the first, but it's part of a decades-long lineage of government alerts.

The Growing Rift Between Workers and Environmentalists

Members of the working class were once among the environmental movement's best allies. That support has largely disappeared.

Who's the Boss?

When conductor and soloist clash, a concerto performance can turn into a contest of wills.
Fishermen in boats pose with their catch of cod in a net off Newfoundland, circa 1890.

There’s Something Fishy About U.S.-Canada Trade Wars

In the 19th century, a tariff dispute actually came to blows, with 30 million frozen herring caught in the middle.

The Nuclear Fail

Physicist and writer Leo Szilard was vital to the creation of the atomic bomb. He also did everything he could to prevent its use.

Between War and Water: Saratoga Springs and Veteran Health after the First World War

The First World War prompted the politicization of nearly all aspects of American life.

Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century

During and after slavery, some whites considered legal marriage too sacred an institution to be offered to black Americans.

The Vietnam War: A History in Song

The ‘First Television War’ was also documented in over 5,000 songs.

The Housing Revolution We Need

A decade after the crash of 2008, a growing movement has thrust our prolonged housing crisis to the center of the national agenda.

Trump’s Nineteenth-Century Grand Strategy

The themes of his UN General Assembly speech have deep roots in U.S. history.
Woman invalid laying on a bed with a book.

The 'Father of American Neurology' Prescribed Women Months of Motionless Milk-Drinking

Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Perkins Gilman were both patients of this infamous rest cure.
Voters casting ballots in 2008.

Why the Right to Vote is Not Enshrined in the Constitution

How voter suppression became a political weapon in American politics.

Brett Kavanaugh Goes to the Movies

A film scholar reflects on the image of masculinity depicted in "Grease 2," released the same summer of Kavanaugh's alleged assault.

Will Democrats Regret Weaponizing the Judiciary?

Using the court system to stymie a president has backfired before.

How Real Estate Segregated America

Real-estate interests have long wielded an outsized influence over national housing policy—to the detriment of African Americans.

Why Do People Sign Yearbooks?

Commemorative class books evolved from practical notebooks into collections of hair clippings, two-line rhymes, and summer wishes.
James Baldwin.

James Baldwin’s Ideas and Activism during the 1980s

Baldwin's often overlooked final years of activism during the 1980's.
Ross Perot speaking in front of a banner opposing NAFTA.

End of the End of History, Redux

Remember Perot?

Aquarius Rising

Considering the religious roots of the 1960s anti-militarist counterculture.

Socialism and the Liberal Imagination

How do socialist demands become liberal common sense? The history of the New Deal offers a useful lesson.

The Briggs Initiative: Remembering a Crucial Moment in Gay History

The lessons from a critical California election in which voters rejected a virulently homophobic ballot measure.

Teaching the Rank and File

The history of the once-ubiquitous labor schools holds lessons for any future revival of working-class activism.
Barn and silo in a field.

The Body in Poverty

The decline of America’s rural health system and its toll on my family.

Did George Washington ‘Have a Couple of Things in His Past’?

A historian assesses Donald Trump’s claim that the first president faced his own allegations of sexual assault.

The Rape Culture of the 1980s, Explained by Sixteen Candles

The beloved romantic comedy’s date rape scene provides important context for the Brett Kavanaugh accusations.

On the Supreme Court, Difficult Nominations Have Led to Historical Injustices

When it comes to partisan Supreme Court nominations, history repeats itself.

Bringing Rapes to Court

How sexual assault victims in colonial America navigated a legal system that was enormously stacked against them.
Edna Lewis in the kitchen.

The People of Freetown

Can renowned Southern chef and writer Edna Lewis' radical communist politics be parsed out by analyzing her cookbooks?

In the Dismal Swamp

Though Donald Trump has made it into a catchphrase, he didn’t come up with the metaphor “drain the swamp.”

Bringing a Dark Chapter to Light: Maryland Confronts Its Lynching Legacy

While lynching is most closely associated with former Confederate states, hundreds were committed elsewhere in the country.
Children bringing home remains of a bed. Coal mining camp, Scotts Run, West Virginia. (1938)

James M. Cain and the West Virginia Mine Wars

Sean Carswell looks into James M. Cain and his time reporting on the West Virginia Mine Wars.

How Small-Town Newspapers Ignored Local Lynchings

Sherilynn A. Ifill on justice (and its absence) in the 1930s.

The Physics Of Why Timekeeping First Failed In The Americas

The world's greatest clockmaker sent a clock to the new world – and everything went haywire.
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