Donald Trump and RFK Jr. shaking hands.

The Magic Thinking of Kennedy-ism

The hero worship of the family of American royalty has a dark side: a tendency toward conspiracism that fits with the MAGA movement.

Pete Hegseth’s Tattoos and the Crusading Obsession of the Far Right

The symbols sported by Trump’s defense pick show how the medieval past is being reimagined by Christian nationalists, behind a shield of plausible deniability.
Elon Musk reacts on stage during a rally for Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden.

America’s Decline & Fall

The founders anticipated someone like Trump partly because they’d been reading Edward Gibbon’s 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.'
A still of Dennis Quaid as Ronald Reagan overlaid on the seal of the United States.

The Thin Line Between Biopic and Propaganda

The success of “Reagan” reflects the market demands of a more fragmented moviegoing public—and reality.
A crowd at a Trump rally, holding signs and flags endorsing him, as well as a Confederate flag.

Trump Is Not an Aberration

America’s path has been contested since its founding, and realizing the promise of liberty required generations of struggle.
An artistic collage juxtiposing a transatlantic slave ship with a tenement in Harlem.

How the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Continues to Impact Modern Life

A new Smithsonian book reckons with the enduring legacies of slavery and capitalism.

History Teaches …

On being defeated.
A drawing of a skeletal hand erupting from the ground and separating a house with a Harris/Walz sign and a house with a Trump/Vance sign. Face masks float in the wind.

There’s a Very Specific Issue Haunting This Election. No One Is Talking About It.

You can bury it. But you can’t escape it.
Uncle Sam with World War II military aircraft; Depression era bread line in front of automobile ad billboard.

It’s Going to Take a Constant Fight to Preserve the Historical Record

The National Archives museum is backsliding into a sanitized retelling of American history. Don’t assume truth will prevail.
Phil Little Thunder, a great-great-grandchild of the Lakota chief whose village was attacked in 1855.

How Recovering the History of a Little-Known Lakota Massacre Could Heal Generational Pain

The unraveling of this long-buried atrocity is forging a path toward reconciliation.
Frances Perkins
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Frances Perkins, Modern Politics, and Historical Memory

The current political moment is reshaping the narrative about the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet.
Cover of "A Great Disorder" by Richard Slotkin, depicting the outline of the United States made out of cracked stone, overlaid with the American flag.

American Mythology

Is the United States a prisoner of its own mythology?
Boxes in the University of Illinois Archives

Historians Killing History

The driving question of scholarship should be “what is the evidence for your argument?” Instead, it has become “whose side are you on?”
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The Bowl Truth

On Joan of Arc’s much-maligned and forgotten haircut.
Empty speech bubbles emanating from people in an old house.

Popular History

What role do we really want history to be playing in our public life? And is the history we have actually doing that work?

Read Another Book

The Power Broker leaves us ill-equipped to understand or confront the struggles that face the city today.
Collage of a flag, a philosopher, hands in prayer, and a Gothic building.

Learning Civics from History

Civic thought and leadership institutes will thrive if they promote strong scholarship and courses in traditional fields the mainstream academy slights.
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.
Two drawn caricatures of Ronald Reagan's face.

I’m a Historian of the ’80s. I Cannot Tell You How Bizarre the New Ronald Reagan Movie Is.

There’s hagiography, then there’s...whatever this is.
Migrants, a family of Mexicans, on the road with tire trouble in California in 1936.

Over 1 Million Were Deported to Mexico Nearly 100 Years Ago. Most of Them Were US Citizens.

A new California bill would commemorate 'a dark part of our American history' known as the Mexican 'repatriation' of the 1930s.
A screenshot from "Red Dead Redemption 2" of cowboy protagonist Arthur Morgan riding a horse in a western landscape.

What Red Dead Redemption II Reveals About Our Myths of the American West

On the making of a centuries-old obsession at the heart of American national identity.
Abstract painting of people embracing.

The Forgotten History of Sex in America

Today’s battles over issues like gender nonconformity and reproductive rights have antecedents that have been lost or suppressed. What can we learn from them?
A crystal ball reflecting a landscape.

50 Years Later: Remembering How the Future Looked in 1974

A half-century ago, "Saturday Review" asked some of the era's visionaries for their predictions of what 2024 would look like. Here are their hits and misses.
Tuskegee syphilis study.

All We Want is the Facts…Or Not

Shedding light on the truth of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
The 54th Massachusetts regiment storming Fort Wagner.

Did Robert Gould Shaw Have to Volunteer the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts to Prove Their Bravery?

Questions linger about the assault on Fort Wagner, which took place on this day in 1863.
Person sitting on couch watching the news.

Is the Age of the Resistance Historian Coming to an End?

People who study the past don’t always have special insight into politics. Recent events have made that crystal clear.
A drawing of a crowd of people standing around the Wakasa stone in a crate.

The Recollector

How the Wakasa stone, a memorial to a Japanese man murdered in a Utah internment camp, became the flash point of a bitter modern dispute.
John Dudley Sargent standing next to Edith Sargent.
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Something We Were Never Meant to See

Finding a story in the ways Robert Ray Hamilton, John Dudley Sargent, and Edith Sargent weren’t quite forgotten. 
The Crawfords, a Negro League baseball team, 1932.

Josh Gibson Topples Ty Cobb?

The power of history, numbers, and nostalgia.
Portrait of Harriet Tubman, in a field.

There Is Room for Our Black Heroes To Be Human

“Night Flyer” expands Harriet Tubman’s legacy to include her family, community and “eco-spiritual worldview.”