Power

John Locke took part in administering the slave-owning colonies. Does that make him, and liberalism itself, hypocritical?

A new history argues that the Second Amendment was intended to perpetuate white settlers' violence toward Native Americans.

During the Cold War, US propagandists worked to provide a counterweight to Communist media, but truth eluded them all.

The Trump administration signals a game of chicken with Russia, which could mean the death of arms control.

What does the Klan of the 1920s have to teach us about the resurgence of organized bigotry in the Trump era?

Minnesota’s Farmer-Labor Party, the most successful labor party in US history, is rich in lessons for challenging the two-party system.

If you look hard enough, you can almost find ideological consistency in the Republicans’ breathtaking tax bill.

The congressman who Alabamians later complained "made them the laughing stock of the Union."

Hill revisits the infamous Clarence Thomas hearings with five of the congressional women who supported her.

How the U.S. Army's antebellum camel experimentation paved the way for the illicit trafficking of enslaved Africans.

Trumpism emerged from a haze of delusion, denial, pride, and cruelty—not as a historical anomaly, but as a profoundly American phenomenon.

The notion that a government’s chief obligation is getting stuff done is a fairly recent arrival on the historical scene.

For decades, the GOP has used tax cuts to achieve its political goals. So why do Dems keep treating "supply-side" as an economic strategy?

On this episode of BackStory, Brian sits down with Ed to talk about a project of his that’s been twenty-five years in the making.

If he does, it will be a sign of just how repugnant his actions are.

Feminists saved the 42nd president of the United States in the 1990s. They were on the wrong side of history.

In hindsight: A day created to commemorate peace has been transformed into one that perpetuates war.

There's a long history of states challenging the federal government, and ignoring Native American claims to the land at issue.

Why French revolutionaries, in need of an image to represent the all important “will of the people”, turned to the thunderbolt.

Ray Schoenke started campaigning for George McGovern in 1971 because he wanted to make a difference. The experience ended up changing his life.

The national survey offers more identity choices than ever—until those choices get scrubbed away.

Requiring displays of patriotism have often been tied to nativism and bigotry.

Experience the Watergate impeachment hearings and television broadcasts as so many did in 1973.

Ron Chernow’s biography reminds our 21st-century selves of the distinction between character and personality.

His wardrobe -- and the millions he spent on it -- tell you everything you need to know about power, 1980s-style.

Legislatures regularly interfere with local affairs. The reasons, according to research, will surprise you.

Citizens pledge their allegiance to a nation that reciprocates with a pledge of allegiance to them. What does that look like?

Mueller and his team are facing a president who seems willing to take down the entire democratic apparatus to save his own skin.

How the contest between capitalism and communism shaped world politics—and defines today’s inequalities.

Embracing the swamp won't sink Trump immediately. But it will sink him eventually.