Excerpts

Joan Scott’s "On the Judgment of History" asks us to imagine the past without the idea of progress. But what gets left out in the process?

Did the Confederacy have a constitutional right to secede? And did Lincoln violate the Constitution in forcing them back into the Union and freeing the slaves?

A frontier character's life was crafted to be legendary, but was the real person as incredible?

American government succeeded, Tocqueville thought, because it didn’t empower the people too much.

Is the American conception of constitutional rights too absolute?

Dreams of Central America in the era of the Erie Canal.

The public widely opposed wiretapping until the 1970s. What changed?

In "A Nation of Descendants," Francesca Morgan traces the American use and abuse of genealogy from the Daughters of the American Revolution to Roots.

What the president understood that the zealous Republican reformers in Congress didn’t.

Nikole Hannah-Jones' new book sidesteps scholarly critics while quietly deleting previous factual errors.

The dark history of how coffee took over the world.

This post is part of a symposium on “The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution,” a new book by Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath.

Three books offer views of the shift from public planning to neoliberal privatization, and emphasize the need to reclaim planning in the public interest.

On Akhil Reed Amar’s “The Words That Made Us,” a new history of America’s constitutional conversation.

The classic story of the child down the well played out in Southern California at the dawn of television.

What has gone wrong with the modern environmental movement and its political organizing.

In Yoknapatawpha County, the past never speaks with a single voice.

A new book examines the ways white slaveholders were compensated, while formerly enslaved people were not.

Richard Cándida Smith on Ian Tyrrell’s "American Exceptionalism: A New History of an Old Idea."

A history of the menthol cigarette and its effects on Black people.

To what degree can we blame automation for deindustrialization and class decomposition?

A new book argues that efforts to humanize war with smarter weaponry have obscured the task of making peace the first goal of foreign policy.

Exponentially more enslaved Africans were forced to the lands that now make up Latin America rather than the United States. Where is their story?

A review of how Dennis Rasmussen understands America's Founding Fathers and their disillusions with the American experiment.

Daniel James Sundahl reviews D. G. Hart’s American Catholic: The Politics of Faith During the Cold War.

"Urban Legends: The South Bronx in Representation and Ruin" is a vibrant cultural history that looks beyond pervasive narratives of cultural renaissance and urban neglect.

On the promises and perils of very recent history.

What a new book and six companion videos have to say about the fate of Black classical music in America.

Thousands of Americans die preventable deaths each year. Why do we consider them mishaps?

Woody Holton’s "Liberty is Sweet" charts not only the contest with Great Britain over “home rule” but also the internal struggle over who should rule at home. 

Is the Republican Party compatible with democracy?

The US Civil War was a revolutionary upheaval that crushed slavery and stoked hopes of a broader emancipation against the rule of property.

A new book juxtaposes dominant narratives about motherhood, women’s autonomy, and abortion with the weirdness of ordinary lives.

A new book argues that the conflict was a battle for empire.

Why the American war was destined for catastrophe and tragedy from the start.

A new book by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Andrew S. Curran examines how 18th-century academics understood Black identity.

Bostonians refused to be forced to house British soldiers. So the army paid rent to willing landlords, and soldiers’ families settled down all over town.

A new book tells the scandalous secrets of a forgotten 19th-century tycoon, Miriam Follin Peacock Squier Leslie Wilde, also known as Mrs. Frank Leslie.

A new book explains why Americans know so little about other countries.

For American journalists abroad in the interwar period, it paid to have enthusiasm, openness, and curiosity, but not necessarily a world view.

Rupert Russell’s new book shows how the financialization of commodity prices worsens volatility and destabilizes geopolitics. It couldn’t be more timely.

Markoff’s biography of Stewart Brand notes that Brand’s ability to recognize and cleave to power explains a great deal of his career.

"The American Scene" is Henry James’s indictment of what Americans had made of their land.

A review of three new books that in various ways track the rise of the "Professional Managerial Class."

Hal Brands urges the U.S. to make China and Russia “pay exorbitantly” for their policies. History shows that has never worked.

It’s never been easier to piece together a family tree. But what if it brings uncomfortable facts to light?

A cautionary tale about the costs and benefits of public/private partnerships.

How microeconomic reasoning took over the very institutions of American governance.

Giles Tremlett tells the story of the foreigners who joined the first line of defense against fascism in Europe.

Even the most ardent advocates of NATO expansion after the implosion of the USSR realized that it had limits—and one of those limits was Ukraine.