Barack Obama

Far from a relic of the past, September 11 continues to normalize previously unimaginable forms of state-sanctioned barbarity.

What the history of a gesture can tell us about Black creative power.

Two new books argue that the War on Terror changed American politics, but what if the sources of its violence were already long present in the country?

The US suffered grave losses in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we shouldn’t mistake revisions of US military strategy for a turn away from imperialist ambitions.

The books of the last two decades show how overreacting to the attacks unmade America’s values.

If colorblindness rests on the claim that the civil rights movement changed everything, the idea that racism is in our DNA borders on a fatalistic proposition that it changed nothing.

The war in Afghanistan was nasty and brutish, marked by the same imperial arrogance that doomed U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Gay marriage was a victory, we’re told—but a victory for what?

Celebrations of multiculturalism obscure the country’s settler colonial history—and the role that immigrants play in perpetuating it.

Spencer Ackerman’s new book argues that the forever wars created the conditions for Trump’s rise.

America did exactly what the Kerner Commission on the urban riots of the mid-1960s advised against, and fifty years later reaped the consequences it predicted.

How the 33rd president finagled his way to a post–White House fortune — and created a damaging precedent.

Looking back on the George Floyd rebellion.

The recent ProPublica exposé shows we need to attack the wealth and power of the rich — and that means massively increasing taxes on them.

After 20 years of foreign policy failures following the attacks on the World Trade Center, America is finally rethinking its place in the world.

John Glenn's fan mail shows many girls dreamed of the stars.

Pulitzer-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed reflects on the battle for the past and the fragile state of American democracy.

Too much has been lost already. The glue that holds humanity’s knowledge together is coming undone.

The famed economist’s theories were embraced by Beltway power brokers in both parties. Finally, a Democratic president is turning the page on a legacy of ruin.

From 1956–1978, Republicans backed D.C. representation, but now oppose it, reflecting a broader GOP shift against voting rights and toward partisan control.