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Screen shot from Carrie in which a bloody hand grabs a girl.

The Startling History of the Jump Scare

From 1942's "Cat People" to cerebral jolts in "Hereditary" and "Get Out," this cinematic scare tactic still shocks.
by Gavia Baker-Whitelaw via Atlas Obscura on October 28, 2024
An old, crumbling Victorian house with figures from horror, including Toni Collette in Hereditary, a zombie, Edgar Allen Poe, and Stephen King.

American Horror Stories

It just might be the great American art form. You can thank the residents of Salem for that.
by Laura J. Miller via Slate on October 19, 2024
Cover of American Scary by Jeremy Dauber.

The Historical Seeds of Horror in "American Scary"

Jeremy Dauber's new book explores the themes and origins of the American horror genre.
by Gianni Washington via Chicago Review of Books on October 7, 2024
An illustration of the book "Silent Spring" on top of the earth.

This Book Helped Save the Planet—but Created a Very Harmful Myth

It radically shifted the way the world looked at the environment, but created a wave of misinformation we’re still dealing with today.
by Katie MacBride via Slate on September 29, 2024
Exhibit

Fear Itself

We're not generally at our best when frightened. It's no surprise, then, that some of the ugliest episodes in American history (but also, some pretty great films) have been driven by fear.
partner

“In the White Interest”

Many founders expressed their hope that slavery would be abolished, while simultaneously exerting themselves to defend it.
by Timothy Messer-Kruse via HNN on September 18, 2024
Police officer in front of a playground and school.

The Historical Precedents to Trump’s Attacks on Haitian Immigrants

An expert on white nationalism explains how such demonizing rhetoric incubates and spreads—and what sets this particular episode apart.
by Kathleen Belew, Isaac Chotiner via The New Yorker on September 18, 2024
Reflections in a store window of people watching the 9/11 attack on television.

The World That September 11 Made

Richard Beck’s “Homeland” traces the far-reaching aftereffects of the attacks and tries to recover the events of the day, as they happened.
by Ed Burmila via The New Republic on September 9, 2024
Illustration by Joanne Imperio / The Atlantic. Sources: Bettmann / Getty; Heritage Art / Getty; NY Daily News Archive / Getty.

What a 100-Year-Old Trial Reveals About America

A new book on the famed 1920s court case traces a long-simmering culture war—and the fear that often drives both sides.
by John Kaag via The Atlantic on August 29, 2024
JD Vance, along with characters from the Scorsese movie "Gangs of New York," shown over a background of a map of New York City

JD Vance is Just Another Know Nothing Nativist

MAGA has been a largely white movement of non-urban people who seem to think that people unlike them are scary and that there is only safety in homogeneity.
by Rebecca Solnit via Literary Hub on August 23, 2024
FBI agents and local police examine a bombed out pickup truck in Natchez, Mississippi.

The History of Violent Opposition to Black Political Participation

Leaders in the 20th-century South faced violence and death for promoting voting rights; systemic failure enabled their killers to go unpunished.
by Dan Biddle, Sara Rimer via Equal Justice Initiative on August 13, 2024
The Hall of the House of Representatives.

Are We Living Through Another 1850s?

It’s difficult to see how these profound antipathies and fears will dissipate soon through any normal political processes.
by Robert W. Merry via The American Conservative on July 22, 2024
Richard Dreyfuss plays shark expert Hooper in Steven Spielberg’s classic 1975 film, “Jaws.”

The Stories Hollywood Tells About America

How three movies set on the Fourth of July reproduce popular myth, but reveal even more through what they leave unsaid.
by Emily Tamkin via New Lines on July 4, 2024
Two women protesting Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh

Disposable Heroes

Christine Blasey Ford’s memoir captures the hazards of “coming forward.”
by Moira Donegan via Bookforum on July 2, 2024
People swimming and standing in water.

On the Time Benjamin Franklin, American Show-Off, Jumped Naked Into the Thames

On our millennia-long love-hate relationship with getting in the water.
by Vicki Valosik via Literary Hub on June 27, 2024
Scene from The Burning, 1981.

Why Are So Many Horror Movies Set at Summer Camp?

Isolation and a heady mix of hormones and fear provide the perfect setting for bloody revenge.
by Gavia Baker-Whitelaw via Atlas Obscura on June 17, 2024
graph of historic immigration data

How America Tried and Failed to Stay White

100 years ago the U.S. tried to limit immigration to White Europeans. Instead, diversity triumphed.
by Eduardo Porter, Youyou Zhou via Washington Post on May 15, 2024
Student protestor holding sign behind campus police officer

Campus Police Are Among the Armed Heavies Cracking Down on Students

While some of the worst behavior has come from local and state police, university police have shown themselves to be just as capable of brutality.
by Alex S. Vitale via The Nation on May 9, 2024
Police gather to clear a Gaza solidarity encampment at the University of Wisconsin at Madison on May 1st.

Anatomy of a Moral Panic

The repressive machine currently arrayed against campus protests follows a familiar pattern.
by Adam Haber, Matylda Figlerowicz via Jewish Currents on May 2, 2024
A illustration depicts the Hopkinsville Goblins incident from 1955, when a group claims they were assaulted by aliens of some sort.

The Long, Surprising Legacy of the Hopkinsville Goblins

Or, why families under siege make for great movies.
by Colin Dickey via Atlas Obscura on February 8, 2024
Fred Dube at a 1981 UN meeting, “South African Women and Labour under Apartheid.”

The Silencing of Fred Dube

Forty years ago, the exiled South African activist dared to teach Zionism critically. A furious backlash ensued.
by Abena Ampofoa Asare via Boston Review on January 18, 2024
Young boy receiving polio vaccine from doctor

Hesitancy Against Hope: Reactions to the First Polio Vaccine

Hesitancy and opposition to vaccines has existed in the past, and such awareness provides needed context to the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine within American history.
by Stephen E. Mawdsley via Process: A Blog for American History on January 9, 2024
A kindergarten teacher coaches a group of crouched children to duck and cover in a national air raid drill, Chicago, 1954.
partner

The Politics of Fear Is Damaging American Education—And Has Been for Decades

Politicians have often sought to remedy educational panic with remedies that do more harm than good.
by Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz via Made By History on December 14, 2023
Closed fist with faces of Judith Shklar, Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, and Lionel Trilling

Cold War Liberalism Is Still With Us. Is That a Good Thing?

A scholarly roundtable on Samuel Moyn's new book.
by Jan-Werner Müller, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, Nicolas Guilhot, Penny Marie von Eschen, Vaughn Rasberry via The Chronicle of Higher Education on October 2, 2023
Students hiding under desks during an air raid test

Is Liberalism a Politics of Fear?

A conversation about the Cold War’s profound and negative influence on the liberal worldview.
by Samuel Moyn, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via The Nation on September 11, 2023
Syringes on the beach.

Hypodermics on the Shore

The “syringe tides”—waves of used hypodermic needles, washing up on land—terrified beachgoers of the late 1980s. Their disturbing lesson was ignored.
by Jeremy A. Greene via The Atlantic on August 29, 2023
Woman in yoga pose

Religion of the Devil, Philosophy of the Coiled Serpent

In yoga’s early days in the United States, skeptics warned it would lead people (e.g., women) of good faith and standing into paganism and ill repute.
by Ramsha Zubairi, Diana L. Eck, Andrea R. Jain, Gwilym Beckerlegge via JSTOR Daily on July 26, 2023
The U.S. flag flies near the Statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.

How Today Is Like the 1890s

The paths the country took out of that earlier crisis offer valuable lessons for what we should do now, and what we should fear.
by Gideon Rose via Council On Foreign Relations on July 16, 2023
A young Black boy pictured mid-flip, while his peers look on. In the background are a row of houses, one of which abandoned with the windows punched out.

What We Meant When We Said 'Crackhead'

“I’ve learned, through hundreds of interviews and years of research, is that what crack really did was expose every vulnerability of society.”
by Donovan X. Ramsey via The Atlantic on July 11, 2023

Long Before Daniel Penny Killed Jordan Neely, There Was 'Death Wish'

Defenses of the recent killing of Jordan Neely suggest that the film’s reactionary, Wild West–style vigilante violence still holds the imagination of many.
by Eileen Jones via Jacobin on May 27, 2023
Collage showing people gathering at the site of school shootings.

The Second Generation of School Shootings

The fear that overtook us that day in 1988 was unfamiliar to most Americans. Now all too many know how it feels.
by Sarah Churchwell via The Atlantic on May 23, 2023
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