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A painting of U.S. Navy Lt. Stephen Decatur battling Muslim sailors, Tripoli, August 1804.

America’s Forgotten Images of Islam

Popular early U.S. tales depicted Muslims as menacing figures in faraway lands or cardboard moral paragons.
by Peter Manseau via The Wall Street Journal on February 27, 2015

1914: Into the Fire

An excerpt from a recently discovered memoir of World War I, "The Burning of the World."
by Béla Zombory-Moldován via New York Review of Books on July 28, 2014
Old abandoned cabin in field.
partner

Creaky Boards and Cobwebs

The history of haunted houses in the movies.
via BackStory on June 7, 2013
Cover of Matthew Avery Sutton's "American Apocalypse" featuring a drawing of people being raptured.
partner

Back to the Fundamentals

Apocalyptic thinking in early Christian fundamentalism.
via BackStory on December 14, 2012
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.
Confederate soldier with wife and baby.
partner

Fighting for Home

How the idea of “home” motivated Confederate soldiers, and strengthened their resolve to fight.
via BackStory on March 31, 2011
Cover of "Making Whiteness," featuring a Black man in front of a billboard of larger-than-life white faces.
partner

Making Whiteness

How a historian's family history informed her professional quest to unpack the stories white Southerners told about themselves.
by In Black America via American Archive of Public Broadcasting on September 1, 1998
Pickets supporting and opposing a House subcommittee on Un-American Activities hearing in 1964.

Reading, Writing, and Redbaiting

When McCarthy stalked the groves of academe.
by Alan Wald via Boston Review on October 1, 1986
Image of a young boy carrying a pistol with women and children in the background.

Gun Culture Then and Now

Firearm ownership meant something very different when the United States was founded.
by Brian DeLay via Vital City on September 10, 2025
James Baldwin and Lucien Happersberger in bed.

The Lives and Loves of James Baldwin

Once dismissed as passé, since recast as a secular saint, Baldwin’s true message remains more unsettling than readers in either camp recognize.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on August 11, 2025
An astrology chart by Joan Quiqley.

Hoover Makes Available the Newly Processed Papers of Nancy’s Reagan’s White House Astrologer

How an astrologer's direction steered presidential travel, public appearances, and meetings.
by Jean McElwee Cannon via Hoover Institution on August 1, 2025
John F. Kennedy meeting with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, 1961.

The Way We Understand the Cold War Is Wrong

People tend to assume they know exactly what the Cold War was and when it ended. Anders Stephanson argues that this standard chronology doesn’t fit the facts.
by Anders Stephanson via Jacobin on July 27, 2025
The nuclear bomb cloud over Hiroshima.

Inside the Days, Hours and Minutes Leading Up to the Hiroshima Bombing

On the preparation and aftershocks of the attack that marked the beginning of the Nuclear Age.
by Iain MacGregor via Literary Hub on July 24, 2025
Flowers and a fan drawing at a memorial for Ozzy Osbourne.

Ozzy Osbourne Taught Kids To Rebel By Subverting Christianity

In Ozzy Osbourne's hands, Satan gave a middle finger to hypocrisy and fearmongering.
by Matthew Avery Sutton via USA Today on July 24, 2025
Wanto Company storefront with a sign that reads "I am an American."

Alien Enemies

The torturers have been revising, the gestapos have been busy, and the prisons have been full for generations.
by Brandon Shimoda via The Baffler on July 9, 2025
A protestor holds up a sign which reads "tax the rich."
partner

The Founders Knew Great Wealth Inequality Could Destroy Us

At the founding of America, leaders predicted that a concentration of wealth would weaken the republic.
by Daniel R. Mandell via Made By History on July 7, 2025
A throng of Trump supporters, some in colonial garb, march through Washington D.C.

The 19th-Century Precursors to the Crises of Trump’s America

Revisiting history shows that violence and constitutional disputes are nothing new in US politics.
by Marcus Alexander Gadson via New Lines on July 4, 2025
The committee assigned to draft the Declaration of Independence examines the document.

The Declaration of Independence Mourns for Something People Lost in 1776 − and Now, Too

The nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, depicts a wounded, fearful society, teetering on the brink of disaster. Sound familiar?
by Maurizio Valsania via The Conversation on June 17, 2025
Militarized National Guard confronts peaceful protesters in Los Angeles, 2025.

What History Tells Us to Expect From Trump’s Escalation in Los Angeles Protests

Since the 1960s, studies have shown that heavy-handed policing and militarized responses tend to make protests more volatile — not less.
by Jamiles Lartey via The Marshall Project on June 9, 2025
Charles Sumner

What We Can Learn From the Senator Who Nearly Died for Democracy

The brutal caning of Sen. Charles Sumner in 1856 shows the difference between courage and concession.
by Zaakir Tameez via Washington Post on June 1, 2025

What If It Is Happening Here?

Lessons from the anti-fascist novel in Trump’s second term.
by David Renton via Literary Hub on May 12, 2025
Senator Joseph McCarthy speaking into microphones.

Newly Declassified Documents Reveal the Untold Stories of the Red Scare

In his latest book, journalist and historian Clay Risen explores how the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy upended the nation.
by Sara Georgini, Clay Risen via Smithsonian on April 1, 2025
People attending a teach-in.

A Way to Honor the Teach-in Movement at 60

It’s time for another national teach-in movement.
by Robert Cohen via Inside Higher Ed on March 21, 2025
A preacher preaches to Union soldiers in the Civil War.

Confession Eclipsed

On the rise and fall of confession in American Catholicism, and what the demography of today's Catholics says about the future of the faith.
by James F. Keating via First Things on March 19, 2025
Actress moves away from a microphone held a red hand.

How the Red Scare Shaped American Television

The fear of communism silenced actors, writers and producers, altering the entertainment industry for decades.
by Carol Stabile via PBS on February 28, 2025
Magazine article entitled "Don't take immunity for granted!"
partner

When Good Housekeeping Meant Getting Vaccinated Against Polio

The pages of 1950s lifestyle magazines offer a glimpse of a time when childhood vaccines were anything but controversial.
by Katherine Churchill via HNN on February 19, 2025
A mustache and a monocle with the preamble to the Constitution in its sights.

The Other Fear of the Founders

America’s early leaders were worried not only about demagogues like Donald Trump, but about the rise of an antidemocratic, wealthy elite that goads such men on.
by George Thomas via The Atlantic on February 12, 2025
New Yorker magazine from November 17, 1962, open to Baldwin's essay.

On James Baldwin’s “Letter from a Region in My Mind”

The essay served as a definitive diagnosis of American race relations. Events soon gave it the force of prophecy.
by Kevin Young via The New Yorker on February 10, 2025
Carrie Baker and her book Abortion Pills: US History and Politics.

The Forgotten—and Incredibly Important—History of the Abortion Pill

Mifepristone took longer to get approved than most drugs—but not because it was unsafe.
by Nina Martin via Mother Jones on February 7, 2025

Trump May Wish to Abolish the Past. We Historians Will Not.

Commentary from the heads of two prominent historical associations on Trump’s recent executive order on “radical indoctrination” in schools.
by David W. Blight, James Grossman, Beth English via The New Republic on February 6, 2025
Joseph McCarthy on a television screen.

No, We’re Not in a New McCarthy Era

Defending academic freedom doesn’t mean exaggerating the threats to it.
by John K. Wilson via The Chronicle of Higher Education on January 31, 2025
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