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Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling, American Imperialist

What the author of "If—" learned about empire from the United States
by Maya Jasanoff via The New Republic
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on August 22, 2019
Telephone from 1896

Want to Guess When the First Telephone Appeared in Literature?

It's probably further back than you think.
by Mark Lasswell via Weekly Standard on December 21, 2017
A photograph of a Pony Express employee riding a horse.
partner

Cowboys and Mailmen

Debunking myths about the Pony Express.
via BackStory on December 7, 2012
Painting depicting a black man speaking to a white woman while gesturing towards a natural arch rendered with stunning precision.

The Artist Who Made America Look Like a Promised Land

Frederic Edwin Church sold a nation on its own mythology. That was his making—and his unmaking.
by Sebastian Smee via The New Yorker
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on May 4, 2026
Political cartoon criticizing monopolies, and their lack of accountability from the government.

Scoundrels and Scriveners: How the West Was Really Won

The real Wild West was as much about legal loopholes and cunning businessmen as it was six-shooters and brazen cowboys.
by Mark Harvey via 3 Quarks Daily on March 10, 2026
1995 photo titled "School Dinner," taken by John Chillingworth.

American Kids Used to Eat Everything

Children in the 19th century happily consumed wild plants and organ meats. What happened?
by Olga Khazan via The Atlantic
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on February 17, 2026
Aftermath of the Park Avenue Tunnel Crash

How New York’s Grand Central Terminal Helped Provide the Blueprint for American Cities by Accident

A train wreck that caused the death of more than a dozen commuters was the impetus behind a monumental project that changed the urban landscape.
by Michelle Stacey via Smithsonian Magazine on November 20, 2025
Malcolm Cowley

The Man Who Helped Make the American Literary Canon

In the early twentieth century, America's literature seemed provincial until Malcolm Cowley championed writers like Kerouac and Faulkner as distinctly American.
by Kevin Lozano via The New Yorker
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on November 19, 2025
Robert Crumb holding up a cartoon book and pointing to it.

Desperate Character: Rambunctious R. Crumb

Rambunctious and often offensive, R. Crumb draws freely on pre-existing racial and gender stereotypes.
by J. Hoberman via London Review of Books
This publication restricts nonsubscriber access to some or all of its articles.
on November 14, 2025
Ronald Reagan and his mother.
partner

Ronald Reagan’s Guiding Light

Having inherited his mother’s beliefs, Reagan was ever faithful to the Disciples of Christ, whose tenets were often at odds with those of the GOP.
by Richard D. Mahoney via JSTOR Daily on April 30, 2025
Painting by Earle Richardson titled "Employment of Negroes in Agriculture," 1934.

Uncle Tom's Cabin is the Great American Novel

Most countries take their popular novelists more seriously than America has. The term “Great American Novel” was literally invented to describe this book.
by Naomi Kanakia via Woman of Letters on March 11, 2025
Floyd’s rowboat used for gathering passengers offshore at Jaffa. Barque et Bateliers de Jaffa.

An American Dragoman in Palestine—and in Print

Floyd’s unusual visibility gives rare insight into how the largely-invisible dragomen shaped travelers’ understandings of the Bible and the Holy Land.
by Walker Robins via Commonplace on March 5, 2025
Thomas Brackett Reed.

America First’s Forgotten Founder

There are better models for President Trump than William McKinley. 
by James W. Carden via The American Conservative on February 7, 2025
Trad wife dresses in six different colors.

My Babies Are Richer Than Yours: On the Lie of the Online Tradwife

A new theory of the leisure class influencer.
by Lauren Carroll Harris via Literary Hub on January 10, 2025
A cartoon depicting Charles Guiteau.

Echoes of Rage

Our new age of violence looks a lot like the Gilded Age.
by George Dillard via Looking Through The Past on December 18, 2024
The American Vandal
Podcast
The American Vandal

Strategic Presentism & Resistance History

What's the difference? The episode opens with defenses of presentism by two literary critics and a reception history of "The Gilded Age" before turning to a critique of resistance history from within the discipline, and a response from a prominent historian, a consideration of the standpoint of resistance history, and why aren't there more literary critics on MSNBC?
September 23, 2024
Gustav Mahler; Charles Ives.

Anchoring Shards of Memory

We don’t often associate Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler, but both composers mined the past to root themselves in an unstable present.
by Joseph Horowitz via The American Scholar on September 9, 2024
Cover of "James" by Percival Everett.

Kierkegaard on the Mississippi 

Percival Everett refashions a Mark Twain classic.
by Zain Khalid via Bookforum on July 2, 2024
A photograph of the massacre perpetrated by Americans taken on the morning of March 8, 1906, on the eastern crest of Bud Dajo.

A Notorious Photo From a US Massacre in the Philippines Reveals an Ugly Truth

A shocking image of the 1906 atrocity survived but failed to become a humanitarian touchstone.
by Kim A. Wagner via New Lines on June 17, 2024
Book cover that reads: "The Next Great American Novel," with the American flag in the background

"James" Is a Retelling of "Huckleberry Finn" that America Desperately Needs

It puts the people in the most peril in the center of the story: the people being systematically exploited, chained, whipped and raped.
by Jarvis Deberry via MSNBC on March 19, 2024
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