Identity

One of the most brilliant minds of the Harvard class of ’35, Reed Peggram met his soulmate on the eve of World War II and risked everything to stay by his side.

The rise of a violent authoritarian state under Trump unveils a deep uncertainty over what America is.

Before her murder made her a true-crime obsession, Elizabeth Short was a real person. A new book tries to separate truth from myth in the infamous case.

The very American story of Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance.

Chronicling the experience of a teenage soldier during the Revolutionary War.

A new biography of the journalist Walter Lippmann bashes conservatives but adds value.

The “Jewish Question” is a scapegoating conspiracy. This essay traces its appeal, partial truths, and why it falsely absolves America of blame.

A writer looks back at the book that shaped her understanding of girlhood, body, and shame.

Long before the Trail of Tears, English colonists drove Maryland’s Indigenous tribes from their land. Piscataway descendants want people to know their history.

Plath felt that marriage and children were the necessary but insufficient condition of her continued creativity.

A new biopic starring Sydney Sweeney as the legendary athlete chronicles Martin’s fights in and outside of the ring.

Are we really living through a uniquely lonely moment? When it comes to friendship, this isn’t the first time that authorities have cried wolf.

How the marriage of American exceptionalism and liberal Zionism led to genocide.

The gunslinging mojo of a fitness craze.

Unpacking the complexities surrounding Native authenticity.

Why some on the right want to know if your ancestors were here during the Civil War.

How America learned not to fear the inner self but lost its places of belonging.

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

The Right's habit of defiance.

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

The radical lives of James Baldwin.

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

Althea Gibson, one of the great tennis players of the twentieth century, made segregation in her sport untenable.

A new biography shows that his life was more complex than his viral fame suggests.

Death in the magnetic age.

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

On the life, influences, and “sophisticated yet lucid brand of Marxism” of the late, great writer.

Mike Gold, Alexander Bittelman, and the paradoxes of left-wing Zionism.

What J.D. Vance excludes from the history of the Civil War and immigration.

The strange fate of mixed-race families in prisons during World War II.