Excerpts

Religious leaders hid behind the separation of church and state to uphold the institution of slavery and the forcible removal of Native Americans.

The sad remnants of a soldier’s life revealed through probate and Ancestry offer a moving glimpse into the afterlife of Civil War service.

We live in polarized times when freedom is threatened but this Juneteenth we should remind ourselves that we have overcome far worse.

The Interstate Highway System created a national polity defined by circulation. To rethink the Interstates is to rethink the United States.

A historian reviews new books by Peter Beinart, Avi Shlaim and Pankaj Mishra on the project that animates Israel’s violence.

Texas might have been a place to start a conversation about widening the scope of civil liberties, but it has also been a place where those liberties end.

Of course, Juneteenth should be recognized as a Black holiday belonging to Black people. But this is not a day purely of joyful celebration.

In their time, “Jaws” and “Nashville” were regarded as Watergate films, and both were in production as the Watergate disaster played its final act.

This Juneteenth we need to discard the caricatures of King that we so often see and learn from what he actually did and believed.

What looks like an excess of strength may really be a deficit of liberty.

We cannot divorce the independence of the executive branch from its substance.

A new book portrays five American historians who published popular books that sacrificed neither intellectual depth nor political bite.

The nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, depicts a wounded, fearful society, teetering on the brink of disaster. Sound familiar?

Thomas Jefferson's limited government ideal quickly conflicted with the U.S. Constitution and the dominant Federalist Party, prompting a radical proposal.

On the slow path to federal action on emancipation during the Civil War.

Gertrude Berg’s “The Goldbergs” was a bold, beloved portrait of a Jewish family. Then the blacklist obliterated her legacy.

How an Ovid-quoting London broadsheet from the late seventeenth century spawned “Dear Abby,” Dan Savage, and Reddit’s Am I the Asshole.

Jack Hanson on the new pope and his namesake.

The commander-in-chief initially barred black soldiers from joining the ranks, but he came to understand the value—both moral and strategic—of a diverse force.

McKinley led a country defined by tariffs and colonial wars. Trump is drawn to his legacy—and determined to bring the liberal international order to an end.

Even some liberals toasted William F. Buckley Jr. as a patrician gentleman. A long-awaited new biography corrects that record.

Domestic deployments have generally been quite restrained. Can they still be?

Ten years after the Charleston massacre, reverence for the Confederacy that Roof idolized is going strong.

The white historian’s responsibility to radical empathy and refuting the “invented past”.

“When you invent the plane, you also invent the plane crash.”

Navigating around the harbor through the East Boston Tunnel.

Marking the centenary of the creator of “The Twilight Zone,” who knew that dystopia was always over the nearest ridge.

Inspired by America’s exceptional idea, it took a vital step toward securing liberty for slaves.

A deeply skeptical, deeply American mind and its trail of sharp, clean sentences.

Amid a rise of laws forbidding discussions of racist histories, sharing our ancestors’ shameful wrongdoings is more urgent than ever.

Martha S. Jones’ new memoir draws on genealogical research and memories shared by relatives.

French Canadians held a distinct position in an American labor landscape in which experts viewed different “races” as being suited to different kinds of work.

J. Hoberman’s teeming history of New York’s avant-garde scene is a fascinating trove of research and a thrilling clamor of voices.

Football's uniform appeal during the 20th century made it a popular analogy for candidates trying to relate to voters during the 1972 presidential election.

Technocratic management, no matter how brilliant, cannot unwind structural inequalities.

A history of wealth, enterprise, and family dysfunction.

Baseball’s early years.

Expanding the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit could make a successful program even better—and address a major crisis.

The con artist was either a very unlucky man or a trickster who got away with it all.

From Revolutionary War-era recluses to 1920s roadside attractions, meet the solitary figures who turned isolation into a destination.

The untold story of how American Jewry and the Jewish state almost resolved the question of who is a Jew.

Israel Putnam? William Prescott? British officers? Was the phrase even uttered at the Battle of Bunker Hill at all?

The National Guard, the true descendent of the citizen-soldier militia, has become a sad and incoherent shell of itself.

Texans left an enduring mark on the gunfighter era. The frontier was a darker place because of it.

James Baldwin’s testimony in images.

Birthright citizenship is distinctly American—but not in the way Trump thinks.

The Trump Administration's reasons for resettling Afrikaners echo early U.S. debates about Haiti's independence.

Fifty years on, "The Monkey Wrench Gang" remains a problematic text for environmental activists, who are inclined to endorse its violent tendencies.

Much of Mackinac Island was designated as a national park, but was too expensive for the government to maintain, so it was transferred to the State of Michigan.

How could two renowned, high-ranking men of the American Revolution have fallen into such dire straits that they feared the loss of all they worked for?