Map fof the San Francisco Bay area.

How California’s Legacy of Violence Against Indigenous People Impacts the Present Day

Unpacking the complexities surrounding Native authenticity.
Black and white icons of people gathered into the shape of the US.

Are You a ‘Heritage American’?

Why some on the right want to know if your ancestors were here during the Civil War.
Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdul Jabbar practicing martial arts.

When Bruce Lee Trained With Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

When Bruce Lee met Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, he was still known as Lew Alcindor, the most hyped young basketball star in history.

A History of Smoking

The Right's habit of defiance.
Hank Thompson baseball card

Hank Thompson Lived A Wild, Tragic, Forgotten Life In Baseball

A baseball’s forgotten pioneer was MLB’s third Black player. A war hero and gifted hitter, his troubled life defied the halo.
James Baldwin by Joe Ciardiello.

James Baldwin’s Radical Politics of Love

The radical lives of James Baldwin.
John Cheever.

John Cheever’s Secrets

In a new memoir, Susan Cheever searches for the wellspring of her father’s genius.
James Baldwin

The Many Lives of James Baldwin

A new biography shows that his life was more complex than his viral fame suggests.
Four young women, the daughters of Sidonia Kahn, in fancy dresses and hats.

Southern Jews Have Always Debated Zionism

Conflicts over Israel’s founding encompassed religion, race, and politics.
Mike Davis

The Marxism of Mike Davis

On the life, influences, and “sophisticated yet lucid brand of Marxism” of the late, great writer.
Mike Gold fading into a field of stars of David.

On the Decades-Long Erasure of Jewish Working-Class Anti-Zionism

Mike Gold, Alexander Bittelman, and the paradoxes of left-wing Zionism.
55th Massachusetts marches through Charleston, 1865.
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Elevating the Few

What J.D. Vance excludes from the history of the Civil War and immigration.
Elaine Yoneda superimposed on an American flag.

The Tale of Elai Yoneda, a Jewish Woman in a Japanese American Concentration Camp

The strange fate of mixed-race families in prisons during World War II.
Japanese-American man in a military uniform.

He Spent His Life Trying to Prove That He Was a Loyal U.S. Citizen. It Wasn’t Enough.

How Joseph Kurihara lost his faith in America.
Fabric with stars on one side and George Washington on the other.

The ‘Dirty and Nasty People’ Who Became Americans

How 13 colonies came together.
New citizens at a naturalization ceremony.

Our Cherished Values and Ideals

Celebrating immigrants on the nation's birthday.
Pages from Eve Adams' Polish passport.

Deported From the U.S. for Publishing 'Lesbian Love,' She Was Later Killed by Nazis

Eve Adams was imprisoned for disorderly conduct and obscenity, then sent back to Europe, where she became a target of the Holocaust.
Color lithograph advertisement showing the interior of a Pullman dining-car, with the Pullman factory out the window, 1894.
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Walking the Race Line on the Train Line

Investigators never reached a conclusion about the death of Pullman porter J. H. Wilkins, but his killing revealed much about the dangers of his profession.
William F. Buckley during a press interview in Buenos Aires, Argentina, circa 1970s. (Alamy)

Steering Right

Sam Tanenhaus’s biography of William F. Buckley has certain limitations, but it captures the character of conservatism’s founding father.
William Buckley stands behind a podium, surrounded by a throng of people, and waves.

The Real Bill Buckley

Even some liberals toasted William F. Buckley Jr. as a patrician gentleman. A long-awaited new biography corrects that record.
Illustration equating Israel's “Who is a Jew?” policy with the Nazi selection process.

Jew? Not a Jew?

The untold story of how American Jewry and the Jewish state almost resolved the question of who is a Jew.
Jewish activists hold Passover Seder outside ICE headquarters in New York City to demand an end to Israel's war on Gaza.

The Past, Present, and Future of Left Jewish Identity

Jewish-led Palestine solidarity demonstrations are part of a long history of Jewish identity being bound up in leftist politics.
The logo for Canada Lumber.
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French Canadians in the New England Woods

French Canadians held a distinct position in an American labor landscape in which experts viewed different “races” as being suited to different kinds of work.
Drawings of women authors

How Margaret Fuller Set Minds on Fire

High-minded and scandal-prone, a foe of marriage who dreamed of domesticity, Fuller radiated a charisma that helped ignite the fight for women’s rights.
William F. Buckley Jr. surrounded by piles of books in his office.

What Made William F. Buckley So Unusual

The author of a new biography talks about the conservative journalist’s life and legacy.
Walt Whitman photographed with a cardboard prop of a butterfly.  Library of Congress

Walt Whitman Used Photography to Curate His Image – but Ended Up More Lost than Found

Whitman curated his image through photography, blending truth and artifice, but like today’s selfies, found more confusion than clarity.
The all seeing eye reveals that the American flag is melting.

America’s Broken Commonwealth

The nation’s founding myth was based on faith and solidarity – but it also contained the roots of today’s democratic crisis.
Walt Whitman

Brag and Humblebrag: Walt Whitman’s Encounters

Walt Whitman was a champion self-advertiser, maven of the brag and the humblebrag.
Old man and young boy.

The Perils of Generational Thinking

By assigning personal attributes to birth cohort, generationism tends to undermine personal responsibility.
V. Ramirez's Army Corps badge.

How Real ID Excludes Real Americans

My dad’s birth certificate said Vicente. His passport said Vince. New legislation would have disenfranchised him.