Excerpts

The American Revolution’s first battle is a reminder that liberty isn't the result of inevitable progress but a prize won by those willing to fight for it.

The Founders had disagreements about the role of religion in America’s public schools, but there was always one line they would not cross.

The US invasion of Vietnam was catastrophic for the Vietnamese people, resulting in millions of deaths. Fifty years ago, the US-backed regime finally collapsed.

The classroom staple turns a hundred.

The making of Vermont's landscape.

The history of the three-drug combo used in death-penalty executions. 

Queen Marie-Louise outlived most of her family, yet her story about the revolution and its aftermath was rarely consulted by those writing the era’s history.

While some Jewish exiles dreamed of a homeland in Palestine, the Jewish Territorial Organization fixed its hopes on Galveston.

Greg Grandin’s new book tells the story of US expansionism and its complex relationship with the rest of the New World.

Zohran Mamdani’s campaign is questioning what a socialist might accomplish as mayor of NYC. To answer it, it’s worth looking back on Fiorello La Guardia.

In 1902, a woman named Mary MacLane from Butte, Montana, became an international sensation after publishing a scandalous journal at the age of 19.

An American story.

The “war on terror” led to a sweeping curtailment of immigrants’ rights that swept up green card holders as well as citizens.

On the case that provoked the courts to decide if the federal government had jurisdiction to exercise American criminal law over Native peoples on Native lands.

Where the rediscovery of Sam Francis goes wrong.

On the movement that fought for old-age pensions during the Great Depression.

How the dystopian visions of the nativist right are in keeping with a long tradition of neoliberal ideology.

John Quincy Adams challenges the idea of an expanding American frontier. 

Why his turn-of-the-century travelogue still resonates.

The long history of promising an “efficient” federal government. 

Columbia is at war with its intellectual heritage.

On the centuries-long historical evolution of a serpentine symbol.

Letters, diaries, and remembrances shared on JSTOR by University of the Pacific reveal the hardships of day-to-day life during the California Gold Rush.

A conversation with Greg Grandin about his groundbreaking new book "America, América: A New History of the New World."

Legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone says we’re closer than ever to finally piecing together the mystery of November 22, 1963.

The complex, sometimes romanticized, but ultimately prophetic Catholic peace movement has critical lessons for today's America amid a genocidal war in Gaza.

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

In a new book, the Pulitzer Prize winner Greg Grandin tells the history of the hemisphere from south of the border.

Effective Republican organizing and intraparty divisions among Democrats solidified GOP political dominance until the 1930s.

The 1790s debate shows that, even when they aim at moral goods, tariffs abet cronyism and corruption.

Shulamith Firestone and the burdens of prophecy.

Today no one on either side of the political spectrum would present themselves as an enemy of choice. Sophia Rosenfeld exposes the complex legacy of this idea.

If the justices take up a case on Virginia’s felon disenfranchisement law, they’ll be burrowing back to Reconstruction-era jurisprudence.

If you've noticed a certain look common to the manosphere, you're not mistaken. A visual identity has taken hold, with roots that trace back decades.

More than a year before Pearl Harbor, President FDR heard arguments from the civil rights leaders of the era for the desegregation of the military.

In the early twentieth century, architects turned to a newly discovered past to craft novel visions of the future: the ancient history of Mesopotamia.

According to Andrew Kahrl, the property tax has been used to disposs black homeowners since the 19th century.

1925 marked the peak of the Florida land boom. But false advertising and natural disasters thwarted many settlers’ visions of striking it rich.

For decades, the term “school choice” was widely and rightly dismissed as racist. Now it’s the law in thirty-three states.

And what happens when empirical fact is labeled “improper ideology.”

The birth of the sanctuary movement some 45 years ago can teach us a lot about how to respond to today’s attacks on immigrants.

Before Lincoln turned the idea of “the Union” into a cause worth dying for, he tried other means of ending slavery in America.

Five women who made important contributions to 19th-century American philosophy finally get their due.

Identifying Sophie Mousseau from a Civil War-Era photo helps us understand our complex past.

An exploration of the contrast between the supreme confidence of Kennan's policy prescriptions and the perpetual turbulence of his inner life.

A detailed guide to the old stories and landscapes of New York City, published in the last year of the 19th century.

During World War I, America lurched toward autocracy. Resistance was minimal.

The demystification of pregnancy.

An interview with Steven Conn about his new book, “Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is—and Isn’t.”

Now, and for some years to come, we will need a lot less Paul Weiss, and a lot more Benjamin Warner.