Excerpts

Trumpism seeks to restore patriotic, triumphalist U.S. history by censoring schools, libraries, museums, and archives.

Benjamin Spock told mothers in the mid-twentieth century to buy six dozen cloth diapers and a covered pail. Within a decade, both were obsolete.

Despite media attention on Confederate statues, few have noticed the theft and destruction of monuments featuring Native American women.

Colonial education administrators recruited teachers from the mainland, but soon realized another strategy was in order.

Postwar compromises weakened the left and ushered in bipartisan neoliberalism. But has neoliberalism lost its ability to navigate capitalism's contradictions?

My parents founded the radical revolutionary group, then became fugitives. I was born in hiding, and spent my early years on the run.

Bill Gates was the monopolistic father figure who Silicon Valley’s young founders rebelled against—and, in so rebelling, became.

Ken Burns talks about his new documentary, The American Revolution; the ongoing project of 1776; and why the war was more than a revolt of wealthy slaveholders.

Cultural histories of unusual hues.

Fred Rogers dedicated his time to educating children while also displaying an impressive collection of sweaters.

David Terry was a bellicose man with a penchant for violence.

What the McRib says about us as a society is worse than any conspiracy theory.

Before 1945, many Vietnamese migrants to the United States were laborers. One was Ho Chi Minh.

How have the survivors reckoned with what happened to them, and what made us forget about this act of violence?

How Obama- and Biden-era immigration policies helped reshape migration at the US-Mexico border.

Kimberlé Crenshaw gave us the terms “intersectionality” and “critical race theory.” Her new memoir shows that she isn’t done fighting over what they mean.

Asian American detectives played by actors like Anna May Wong and Keye Luke had a minor but notable place in 1930s and 40s Hollywood.

Ernest Oberholtzer is one of the most important—and overlooked—champions of protecting nature in the U.S.

Fringe elements of American society have never accepted that birthright citizenship is the law of the land.

Sports solved a problem that nearly killed television.

A historian stumbles upon an article that provides a fascinating glimpse into how the world thought about witchcraft and sex in 1963.

West Point scholar argues ‘hazy, rosy’ myth shaped false sense of U.S. destiny.

Richard Labunski is a professor emeritus of journalism from the University of Kentucky and author of James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights.

Americans have long imagined that they set off a global age of revolt. Seen within the era’s wider wars of empire, the story looks rather different.

‘Artificial’ didn't scare Americans in the 19th century. Why does it scare them now?

The president wants to permanently honor 250 Americans with statues near the National Mall. There are some weird inclusions.

During the American Revolution, both the British and the patriots fought to keep sensitive papers out of enemy hands.

In destroying the Voting Rights Act, the justices echo the court’s darkest and most racist days.

Walt Disney's trip to the River Rouge plant in Michigan inspired him to embrace the power of automation when designing the first Disney theme park.

Washington has long treated the island as giant aircraft carrier. As a result, residents face economic strain and lack many democratic rights and protections.

You can forgive historians if they are overwhelmed by a sense of déjà vu as they witness the hate and vitriol aimed at Muslims by Texas Republicans today.

How the U.S. Census has affected the long Black freedom struggle.

Donald Trump’s aversion to admitting fault suggests that we will not see events that grapple with the nuanced nature of the nation’s history this July 4th.

On the American renaissance of prose and poetry in the 1850s.

The infamous paramilitary assault remains a cautionary Cold War history.

The outfit that's making historical content for Trump's White House and America's youth has a history of doing history with a loose relationship to the truth.

Sometimes an era's most lasting contributions musical culture aren't found at the top of the charts.

Who owns the Arctic?

Decades before the Ayatollah, even before the shah, early Americans found themselves enchanted with Iranian culture, politics, and history.

Lewis and Clark's influence on a nascent American literature.

History shows that bad leaders can successfully undermine democracy — but the story always ends the same way.

From cowboys to labor leaders, David Griscom's debut book calls on Texans to reclaim their leftist roots—and examine who buried them in the first place.

How did sassafras go from cure-all to carcinogen? Its history links Indigenous knowledge, colonial trade, and modern scientific debate.

Lessons on social movement organizing from the group's intellectual influences, grassroots actions, and response to relentless state political repression.

Diplomats like Benjamin Franklin and John Adams won the war of words.

William Seward's 1868 attempt to acquire the Danish territory was the country's first, but not the last. 

Power can be exercised through proximity and trust.

The route of war-based boardgames from Prussian military headquarters to Gary Gygax’s basement.

Ambiguity demands decisive leadership.

For Patrick Henry, it was just a matter of time before a ruler like Trump came along.