Uncovering Hidden History on the Road to Clanton

Documentary filmmaker Lance Warren interrogates the silence around lynching in the American South.

Myth of Black Confederates Won't Go Away

Two South Carolina lawmakers dust off a familiar trope in an attempt to fight back against Confederate monument removals.

Was the Declaration of Independence Signed on July 4?

How memory plays tricks with history.
Reagan signing the bill establishing Martin Luther King Day.

The Sanitizing of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks

On the uses and abuses of civil rights heroes.

Confederacy: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

John Oliver reflects on the history of Confederate monuments.
"Inspiration of Christopher Columbus" painting, depicting Columbus gazing out at sea.

How Columbus, Of All People, Became a National Symbol

Christopher Columbus was a narcissist.

The History Behind the Movement to Replace Columbus Day

Though the first Indigenous Peoples’ Day was celebrated in the early 1990s, the idea took shape many years earlier.

Everyone Needs to See The Roots' Schoolhouse Rock-Style Slavery Lesson From 'Black-ish'

"I'm Just a Slave" is a necessary song about Juneteenth.

Recontextualizing the Ocean Blue

Italian Americans and the commemoration of Columbus.

Hanged, Burned, Shot, Drowned, Beaten

In a region where symbols of the Confederacy are ubiquitous, an unprecedented memorial takes shape.

What’s So Bad About Ken Burns?

The modern historical profession's purpose has changed drastically in the past century.

Pour One Out for Ulysses S. Grant

His presidency was known for corruption, scandal, and booze. In a new book, Ron Chernow attempts to rehabilitate it.

Empty Pedestals

What should be done with civic monuments to the Confederacy and its leaders?

The Ken Burns Vietnam War Documentary Glosses Over Devastating Civilian Toll

The PBS series by Burns focuses on soldiers' stories, with scant attention to the immense number of Vietnamese civilians who suffered and died.

Guardians of White Innocence

The Sons of Confederate Veterans want to convince Americans that Southern heritage isn’t about slavery. Is it a lost cause?
Ripped American flag flying next to the Texas flag.

In Texas, Even the Lies about the Confederacy Are Bigger

Republican House Speaker Joe Straus is calling for the removal of a Confederate plaque about the role of slavery in the Civil War.
Title card for Burns and Novick's Vietnam War documentary.

‘The Vietnam War’: Past All Reason

The new series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick is mesmerizing. But it doesn’t answer key questions about the Vietnam War.
Napalm explosion in Vietnam.

Episode-by-Episode Reviews: "The Vietnam War"

Watching Ken Burns' latest epic with a historian who has written extensively about the war.
Two American soldiers in Pleiku, South Vietnam, home to an American airbase in May 1967.

Studying the Vietnam War

How the scholarship has changed.

History is Not There to be Liked: On Historical Memory, Real and Fake

Historians have the uncomfortable role of shattering people’s memories.

Who is the Enemy Here?

The Vietnam War pictures that moved them most.

Defenders Of Confederate Monuments Keep Trying To Erase History

Claims that the Confederacy didn't fight to uphold slavery are disputed by Confederate generals themselves.
The filmmakers discuss the Vietnam miniseries.

Burns and Novick, Masters of False Balancing

In promoting healing instead of a search for truth, “The Vietnam War” offers misleading comforts.

We Legitimize the ‘So-Called’ Confederacy With Our Vocabulary, and That’s a Problem

Tearing down monuments is only the beginning to understanding the false narrative of Jim Crow.

Nature's Disastrous ‘Whitewashing’ Editorial

Science's ethos of self-correction should apply to how it thinks about its own history, too.
Outside of the New York Historical Society building.

Bringing It All Back Home: The Vietnam War in Public History and Personal Memory

Louise Mirrer reflects on the history and memory of the Vietnam War and a new exhibit at the New York Historical Society.

The Fallacy of 1619

Rethinking the history of Africans in early America.

The Long Summer of Love

Historians get hip to the lasting influences of ’60s counterculture

Forrest the Butcher

Memphis wants to remove a statue honoring first grand wizard of the KKK.
U.S. Marine Corps soldiers usher suspected Viet Cong members through the rubble of a village in 1965.

Ken Burns' New Documentary Exposes the Emotion Behind the Vietnam War

An interview with the filmmakers.