Told

More importantly, our misappropriation of “puritan” has allowed scholars to ignore and the public to misunderstand religion.

Advertising went from being an embarrassing activity to a legitimate part of every company’s business plans—despite scant evidence that it worked.

Marty Peretz and the travails of American liberalism.

A brief history of the textfile, and the production of conspiracy theories on the internet.

In Indiana, “hoosier” is a badge of honor. In St Louis, it’s the nastiest insult around. The difference reveals the prejudice that breaks worker solidarity.

Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language declared Americans free from the tyranny of British institutions and their vocabularies.

A new PBS documentary whitewashes the conservative founder of National Review.

For half a century, viewers scorned the laugh track while adoring shows that used it. Now it has all but disappeared.

You can thank Eric Voegelin for the right’s clichéd catchall critique for the left.

What's in a name? According to the "Dictionary of American Family Names," it depends.

How lesbian teenagers forged community bonds and found connection through magazines.

The surprising history of a politically charged phrase.

One of the country’s greatest rhetorical traditions still has the power to remind us of our founding principles.

"Late Night with the Devil," a “found footage” horror film, perfectly captures the mood and style that surrounded media depictions of the occult in the 1970s.

Black-authored print was central to James G. Birney’s conversion from enslaver to abolitionist and presidential candidate.

Romano’s book is a vital, comprehensive piece of media scholarship about one of the most influential outlets of the last century. It’s also fun as hell to read.

The feminist history of the crossword puzzle: some of the form's early champions were women working for little to no pay.

On the suppression of sign language.

On the Irish writer’s grand tour of the Gilded Age United States.

The story of the Los Angeles Municipal News, and the hope — and limitations — of publicly owned newsrooms.

As the fear of communist subversion spread throughout America, McCarthy launched hearings that were based on scant evidence and overblown charges.

Over a weekend in 1995, a small group gathered in Ohio to unleash the power of the internet by making it navigable.

Large language models can do a lot of things. But can they write like an 18th-century fur trader?

A front-row seat to a slow-moving catastrophe. How tech both helps and hurts our world.

Dan Sinykin’s history of corporate fiction.

On the early origins of a very American kind of writing.

Exploring Deaf history, language and education as the hearing child of a Deaf adult.

When speech offends, who decides where boundaries should be drawn?

Attribution can make visible the vast infrastructure of research and display how much hard-won knowledge, including creative endeavor, it has faciliated.

Bruce Kuklick traces the meaning of the term “fascist” from its origins to the present day and how it has, over the years, gradually lost its coherence.