Excerpts

Part of what defines Pittsburgh literature is the transcendent in the prosaic, the sacred in the profane. An intimation of beauty amid a kingdom of ugliness.

Exploring the correspondence of June Jordan and Audre Lorde, Marina Magloire assembles an archive of a Black feminist falling-out over Zionism.

Ideological entrepreneur, architect of ruin.

Reflecting on his decades-long career, the historian considers what his field of study owes to the public.

The financial crisis of the University of Chicago sheds light on the forces that are "corroding ideals, and wasting money" throughout American higher education.

On campaign finance, economic policy, and the 2024 US election.

Stanley Greenberg has spent decades answering the question of how water arrives in our taps and building interest in this vast and impressive system.

For years, the Office of Technology Assessment helped Congress see around corners on science and tech. Its 1995 shutdown left lawmakers flying blind.

Originally a secret society, the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry today is an important health and education resource in rural communities.

Americans’ love affair with the South Pacific masks the US Navy’s devastating impact on the region’s people and environment.

The first modern presidential death was also the first medical mystery America refused to let go.

In 1966, police shot a young Puerto Rican man. What followed created a blueprint for a new kind of solidarity.

In public schools around the country, conservatives are succeeding in their long effort to replace the word “democracy” with “constitutional republic.”

American Indian woman used Christianity to maintain their agency and kinship networks.

By reviving the Presidential Fitness Test, Trump is joining his predecessors in setting forth a competition that he would likely fail at.

The attempts by his administration to control the ways Americans engage with our nation’s history threaten to weaken patriotism, not strengthen it.

He has produced a crisis much like the one the colonists faced two and a half centuries ago. Now it’s our responsibility to uphold the Founders’ legacy.

The often-overlooked institutions of the federal government truly do matter and so do the individuals who lead those institutions and give them direction.

It is time for conservatives to reclaim their criticism of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Educators can fight back against Trump’s attacks by re-embracing “old-fashioned” disciplines and ideas.

Tracing markers from near and distant past and unspooling the narratives about the imprints we leave on the planet for what they say about the future.

How an astrologer's direction steered presidential travel, public appearances, and meetings.

On the iconic conservation legacy of Theodore Roosevelt and the perception that the national parks and monuments he created were previously untouched and empty.

From a dying adviser to a clumsy editorial, the Revolution was a cascade of accidents and oversights.

There are two ways to understand John Maynard Keynes: tracing his influences and legacies, and highlighting the ideas and perspectives he missed.

Cue games have had a lingering influence on our language and culture—even before the contributions of “Fast Eddie” Felson.

A history of the Bloody Pit.

Art, politics, and revolution intertwined as transatlantic Patriots used wax, paint, and wit to shape the fight for American independence.

He made his name in Chicago investigating race riots, solving crimes, and exposing corruption. But America’s first Black private eye was hiding his own secrets.

Sam Tanenhaus’s biography of William F. Buckley has certain limitations, but it captures the character of conservatism’s founding father.

In the book “Rooted,” activist and writer Brea Baker elucidates the thread between limited Black land ownership and the racial wealth gap.

Painter William Merritt Chase opened an art school for a new generation of women, teaching them how to draw as well as how to advocate for themselves.

Nietzsche’s continued presence and resonance in America suggests that he never forgot his Emersonian inheritance.

On William W. Watt’s experience in the aftermath of nuclear devastation.

On the unblissful union between Miriam Leslie and Willie Wilde.

We must mobilize now to defend our profession, not only with research and teaching but in the realm of politics and public persuasion.

The history of gerrymandering suggests that the current redistricting race for short-term partisan gain indicates a period of political instability on the way.

Historians are recovering the overlooked history of North America’s Crotalus horridus, the timber rattlesnake.

As plans are laid for a new casino, one can trace, through four figures, a history of rivalry and excess, rife with collisions of character and crime.

On the life, influences, and “sophisticated yet lucid brand of Marxism” of the late, great writer.

The biggest problem with the history Trump wants to impose on us is that it never, in fact, existed.

On freedom, servitude, and writing a novel set in the seventeenth century.

The long and winding tale behind the Resolute Desk.

By posting paintings like “American Progress,” the DHS signals its white supremacist beliefs.

How the New Right emerged from neoliberalism’s inner split.

Eighty years after the bomb, scientists still grapple with nuclear legacy. Some seek atonement, others insist it’s no longer their burden.

Sixty-four years after Radio Free Dixie first aired, the show is still a shining example of a truly revolutionary cultural institution.

A woman killed by Congress.

After Hiroshima, scientists became key political voices, some as stewards, others as activists, shaping nuclear policy and moral responsibility.

With Iran’s theocracy under strain, a new history shows that its rise was mainly a stroke of bad luck.