Demonstrators march, carrying signs against firing City College faculty.

Eric Foner’s Personal History

Reflecting on his decades-long career, the historian considers what his field of study owes to the public.
Trump hugging the American flag, superimposed on rows of soldiers with bowed heads.

Trump’s Reckless Assault on Remembrance

The attempts by his administration to control the ways Americans engage with our nation’s history threaten to weaken patriotism, not strengthen it.
Lighter falling onto a pile of books.

What If History Died by Sanctioned Ignorance?

We must mobilize now to defend our profession, not only with research and teaching but in the realm of politics and public persuasion.
Young Latino children holding a small American flags.

The Diversity Bell That Trump Can’t Un-ring

The biggest problem with the history Trump wants to impose on us is that it never, in fact, existed.
Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer at Los Alamos in 1942.

General Groves Invented the Atomic Bomb, Not Oppenheimer

Gen. Leslie Groves promoted Oppenheimer as the atomic bomb's inventor to craft a propaganda narrative, obscuring the true creators and moral implications.
Images of historical figures including Bejamin Franklin and Albert Einstein are overlaid on a green and white background.

Who’ll Be in Trump’s Hero Garden? There Are a Few Surprises.

The list of nearly 250 includes the famous, the obscure and, in some cases, the intentionally controversial.
Romani American Birthday Party, c. 1960, courtesy of Portland Art Museum

The Case of the Missing Romani American History

And why we should find it.
Johann Neem

Bringing American History Back Home for the 250th

Challenges, opportunities, stakes.
Still frame from the film Inherit the Wind depicts a legal team sitting in a packed courtroom.
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How Theater Helps Us Remember the Scopes Trial 100 Years Later

'Inherit the Wind' changed how people understand, and remember, the legendary Scopes trial.
A snowcapped mountain surrounded by forest reflects in a lake at North Cascades National Park.

Remembering What the Parks Forgot

On memory, erasure, and the return of indigenous presence.
Movie poster for Warfare, 2025.
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War Stories Without the History

Films about the Iraq War prize “truth-telling,” but don’t offer many insights about the war itself.

The Compassionate Historian

History’s academic study is now deeply politicized, with partisan views shaping beliefs and debates over even basic historical facts.
People pose next to a National Park Service sign for the Stonewall National Monument.
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Stonewall National Monument Declaration: Annotated

In June 2016, President Obama proclaimed the first LGBTQ+ national monument in the United States at the site of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City.
Soldiers listen as President Donald Trump speaks at Fort Bragg on June 10, 2025, in North Carolina. | Alex Brandon/AP

Trump Reverses Army Base Names in Latest DEI Purge

The announcement comes just four days before the Army’s multimillion dollar parade in Washington.
Abstract painting depicts faces staring at each other from either end of the canvas.

Bridging the Gap

A new book portrays five American historians who published popular books that sacrificed neither intellectual depth nor political bite.
Collage of various black women mentioned within the article.

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Edda L. Fields-Black on the Combahee River Raid

Harriet Tubman’s revolutionary Civil War raid and the power of preserving Black history in the face of political pushback.
Bound volumes detailing the history of the United States' foreign relations.

These Historians Oversee Unbiased Accounts of U.S. Foreign Policy. Trump Fired Them All.

The volumes of the Foreign Relations of the United States have been written since Abraham Lincoln’s time.

George Floyd and the Writing of the Final Chapter of Richmond's Confederate Monuments

Do we as Americans have the strength to confront our complicated past?
John Trumbull’s painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, 1819.

Who Invented the “Founding Fathers?”

The making of a myth.
An iMac computer displays the starry night screensaver.

Recurring Screens

Reflections on memory, dreams, and computer screensavers.
Karl Marx gazing off into the distance while surrounded by books

Karl Marx’s Legacy in the United States

For two centuries, Karl Marx’s thoughts have significantly impacted US politics. In turn, his close study of the US informed the development of his ideas.
Painting of the muse of history.
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So Ductile Is History in the Hands of Man!

The past and present of counterfactual history, from antiquity to the Napoleonic Wars to a few very active subreddits.
A Freedmen’s Bureau office, Richmond, Virginia, 1866.

One Brief Shining Moment

Manisha Sinha’s history of Reconstruction sheds fresh light on the period that fleetingly opened a door to a different America.
Scene of prehistoric game hunters.

Prehistory’s Original Sin

We need more than genealogies to know who we are, and who we ought to become.
Helicopter, soldiers, and civilians at the fall of Saigon.
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How We Oversimplified the History of the Vietnam War

Popular memory of the war in both the U.S. and Vietnam tends to cast the fall of Saigon as inevitable.
Gothic cathedral

On What Americans Know About Medieval History

A public opinion poll suggests that people really have strong opinions about a period that they don't really know anything about.
American soldiers in Vietnam.

If You’ve Watched Ken Burns’ Vietnam Documentary, Do You Need Netflix’s?

I, a historian of the Vietnam War, have watched the Turning Point treatment. I have some notes.
Film still from "Three Seasons" of a flower seller in Vietnam.

Tony Bui on the Vietnam War’s Cinematic Legacy

Films from Vietnam and Hollywood testify to the range of stories told about the war on-screen and the different memories they embody.
National Public Housing Museum

At the National Public Housing Museum, an Embattled Idea Finds a Home

Chicago’s latest museum looks to change the narrative around the federally supported housing projects that US cities turned their backs on decades ago.
Trump from behind, and the Washington monument.

How Trump Wants to Change History

Late last month, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to restore “truth and sanity to American history.”