Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
New on Bunk
Donald Trump wearing 2000 "America First Pat Buchanan" sticker.

The Crack-Up

John Ganz’s “When the Clock Broke” renders the signal political battles of the present in an entirely new light.
Rednecks by Taylor Brown.

The Battle of Blair Mountain and Stories Untold

An interview with Taylor Brown, author of the novel "Rednecks."
A collage of the covers of famous EPs.

The Little-Known Legacy of the EP

“An Ideal for Living” explores the fascinating backstory of a mini music format.
David Duke, a former Klansman and neo-Nazi, lost the race for governorship in Louisiana but won a majority of the white vote.

The American Election That Set the Stage for Trump

In the early nineties, the country turned against the establishment and right-wing populists thrived. A new history reassesses their impact.
Aziz Rana.

Aziz Rana Wants Us to Stop Worshipping the Constitution

A conversation with the legal scholar on why it is unusual that the Constitution is core to American national identity.
Zdeněk Koubek running.

Human Velocity

“The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports” upends long-held assumptions about trans people’s participation in sports.
Sailors singing a sea shanty.

There’s No Such Thing as “Just a Song”

What we can learn from the history of maritime folk music.
Donald Trump speaks with reporters on Thanksgiving, November 26th, 2020.

“Almost the Complete Opposite of Fascism”

A conversation with Corey Robin on the surprisingly weak presidency of Donald Trump.
President Bill Clinton addresses crowd at Waikiki.

An Unrelinquished Claim and Vested Interest

A conversation with John David Waiheʻe III, former Governor of Hawai‘i, on the U.S. apology to the Hawaiian people.
Hand throwing crumpled dollar bills into pile

Extravagances of Neoliberalism

On how the fringe ideas of a set of American neoliberals became a new and pervasive way of life.
Student protesters at Columbia University in April 1968.

Reviving the Language of Empire

On revisiting the anti-imperialism of the 1960s and ’70s amid the return of left internationalism.
Cover of "The Black Tax"

Tax History Matters: A Q&A with the Author of ‘The Black Tax’

The history of the property tax system and its structural defects that have led to widespread discrimination against Black Americans.
Tucker Carlson wearing a t-shirt with a photograph of Abraham Lincoln on it.

The Right May Be Giving Up the “Lost Cause,” but What’s Next Could Be Worse

The GOP’s new embrace of Lincoln, emancipation, and Juneteenth is no sign of progress.
U.S. presidential seal

Founding-Era History Doesn’t Support Trump’s Immunity Claim

Historians Rosemarie Zagarri and Holly Brewer explain the anti-monarchical origins of the Constitution and the presidency.
Richard Slotkin.

“A Theory of America”: Mythmaking with Richard Slotkin

"I was always working on a theory of America."
Solidarity book cover and photos of authors Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor.

Talking “Solidarity” With Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix

A conversation with the activists and writers about their wide-ranging history of the politics of the common good and togetherness.
Cesar Chavez standing next to Luis Valdez.

Cesar Chavez, Family and Filmmaking with Luis Valdez

Luis Valdez on his friendship with Cesar Chavez, his works in the National Film Registry, and a lifetime of activism.
Boiling House at the Sugar Plantation Asunción, Cuba, 1857.

Slavery Was Crucial for the Development of Capitalism

Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World.
Emily Brooks.

When NYC Invented Modern Policing: On WWII–Era Surveillance and Discrimination

From the 1880s to the 1940s, New York City was transformed—and so too was the New York City Police Department.
AIDS Memorial Quilt on display on the Mall in Washington, DC in 1987.

'We Need a Day.' Meet the Man Who Helped Create World AIDS Day

A conversation with the man behind World AIDS Day.
Files in Guatemala’s Historical Archive of the National Police. Photo by Luis Soto.

Rachel Nolan: In the Best Interest of the Child

A new book gets inside Guatemala’s international adoption industry and the complicated context of deciding a child’s welfare.
Map of routes of the Underground Railroad, 1850-1865

Marronage & Police Abolition

Marronage as a placemaking practice, pointing to histories that shape and inspire abolitionist struggles.
Ketamine bottles

The Many Lives of Ketamine

Neuroscientist Bita Moghaddam traces the history of ketamine from the battlefield to the dance floor.
A black and white drawing of Julia Ann Chinn.

Tenuous Privileges, Tenuous Power

Amrita Myers paints freedom as a process in which Black women used the tools available to them to secure rights and privileges within a slave society.
Branko Milanovic, 2017.

The Problematic Past, Present, and Future of Inequality Studies

An intellectual history of inequality in economic theory reveals the ideological reasons behind the field’s resurgence in the last few decades.
Cover of "Age of Revolutions" book featuring soldiers' arms raised with swords, pikes, and bayonets.

Generating the Age of Revolutions

Age of Revolutions was happy to interview Nathan Perl-Rosenthal about his new book, entitled 'The Age of Revolutions and the Generations Who Made It.'

‘On the Brink of Extinction’: A Food Historian’s Hunt for Ingredients Vanishing from U.S. Plates

Disappearing foods – and why they need protecting.
A photograph of Anne Morrissy next to the cover of her book, "Street Fight."

The Chicago Taxi Wars of the 1920s

The turbulent history of an often forgotten moment that would leave blood in the streets and shape the modern landscape of Chicago.
Jewish activists demanding ceasefire in Gaza.

When ‘Nice Jewish Boys and Girls’ in the US First Took up the Palestinian Cause

According to Geoffrey Levin’s ‘Our Palestine Question,’ divides over Israeli policy aren’t new – they existed before American Jews fully embraced Zionism.
The Glen Canyon Dam.

Dubious Dam

A conversation with Erika Marie Bsumek about one of the worst boondoggles in the Southwest.
The cover of Cynthia A. Kierner's "Inventing Disaster," which depicts a shipwreck during a storm.

On Inventing Disaster

The culture of calamity from the Jamestown Colony to the Johnstown Flood.

Jonathan Edwards, Mentor

When we think of Jonathan Edwards, most probably think first of him as a theologian or preacher. But a new book also shows him as a mentor.
Milton Friedman (L) and James Tobin (R)

The Forgotten Case Against Milton Friedman

In 1967, Milton Friedman launched a counterrevolution in economics that overturned the Keynesian theory of inflation.
Economist Milton Friedman poses next to a bust sculpture of himself

The Century of Milton Friedman

An interview with Jennifer Burns on her authoritative new biography of the American economist and the personal and intellectual origins of his theories.
A photograph of Dennis Lehane next to the cover of his book, Small Mercies.

The Other South

Coming to terms with Boston’s racist legacy in “Small Mercies."
J. Edgar Hoover

J. Edgar Hoover Shaped US History for the Worse

As director of the FBI for decades, J. Edgar Hoover helped build a massive, professionalized national security state and hounded leftists out of public life.
Photo of "Madness: Race and insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum" with photo of author Antonia Hylton alongside it.

What It Was Like to Be a Black Patient in a Jim Crow Asylum?

In March 1911, the segregated Crownsville asylum opened outside Baltimore, Maryland, admitting only Black patients.
A group of Transappalachain migrant workers in Department 312 of the Anderson Delco-Remy plant pose for a photograph in February 1953.

On the New Book, "Hillbilly Highway"

Recovering the long-overlooked significance of the “hillbilly highway” in the US, with implications for labor history as well as US history broadly.
Suburban cul de sac.

How Fear Took Over the American Suburbs

On the rise of suburban vigilantes and NIMBYs in the late 20th century and their enduring power today.
partner

How Liberal Policymakers and White Suburban Parents Drove the War on Drugs

A Q&A with Matthew Lassiter about how liberal policymakers and white parents drove the escalation of the War on Drugs.

Docking Stations

A conversation with historian Peter Cole about his recent book, Dockworker Power.
The cover of "The Deadline" by Jill Lepore.

The Hold of the Dead Over the Living

A conversation with Jill Lepore about the past decade — “a time that felt like a time, felt like history.”
Manifest Destiny painting by Gast.

'Pure White' Examines the White Supremacist Origins of Evangelical Purity Culture

The new podcast discusses how purity is woven into many of the myths that have fed White supremacy in the nation’s past and continue to do so today.
Women feeding chickens at the Indiana Reformatory Institution for Women and Girls.

The Forgotten History of America’s First Public Women’s Prison

The editors of a new book talk about the history of the Indiana facility — written by people who were held there almost 150 years later.
A collage of a feminine hand using a computer mouse and an eye layered over it as if watching.

Many Revolutions

The internet has expanded how we understand the possibilities of the trans experience.
A scene from the film Orphans of the Storm depicting a group carrying a sign bearing the slogan “Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité,” 1921.

The History of Equality: It’s Complicated

The strange and contradicting development of the liberal version of egalitarianism.

Surviving a Wretched State

A discussion on the difficulty of keeping faith in a foundationally anti-Black republic.
U.S. Capitol building

Searching for the Perfect Republic

On the 14th amendment – and if it might stop Trump.
A women's liberation group marches in Boston on April 17, 1971.

The Reproductive Rights Movement Has Radical Roots

Abortion rights in the US were won in the 1970s thanks to militant feminist groups. As those rights are repealed, the fight must return to the streets.
George C. Wolfe.

George C. Wolfe Would Not Be Dismissed

A conversation with the longtime director about “Rustin,” growing up in Kentucky, and putting on a show.
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