Excerpts

A new book persuasively argues that the Federalists’ attempt to squash opposition and the free flow of ideas was even more nefarious than we thought.

Trump’s family separation policy belongs to a much longer history of U.S. government forces taking children from families that don't match the American ideal.

He was the most revered poet of his day. It’s worth trying to figure out why.

A Review of "Design for the Crowd: Patriotism and Protest in Union Square."

A new book considers the mid-century authors who were – and weren't – willing to have their work deployed in the service of the Cold War.

We can only understand the left’s present dilemmas by seeing them in light of the conflicted legacy of the New Deal.

A review of two new books that illuminate a range of still unrealized visions of anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, and anti-racism.

A scholar depicts white supremacy as the economic engine of American history.

The US-backed Indonesian mass killings of 1965 reshaped global politics, securing a decisive victory for U.S. interests against Third World self-determination.

A review of "Washington’s End: The Final Years and Forgotten Struggle," by Jonathan Horn.

Eric Foner reviews two new books that make the case against the Electoral College.

What 'the forgotten man of American conservatism' has to say about current debates on the right.

Three new books consider the life, and impact, of Franz Boas, the "father of American cultural anthropology."

What is the defining achievement of Barack Obama?

How did the struggle for emancipation become a mass politics?

A new book looks at the history of the Afro-Latinx radical activist group and how their influence continues to be felt.

In "Race for Profit," Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor walks us through the ways racist housing policy survived the abolition of redlining.

The radical and reactionary currents of New York at the turn of the 20th century.

The afterlife of Vivian Gornick's "The Romance of American Communism" shows that we bear the weight of dead generations—and sometimes living ones, too.

Four new books show how different, and maybe also why.

A new book looks at the lives of Jewish professors who sought asylum in the U.S. and were denied entry.

A review of "The Idealist: Wendell Willkie’s Wartime Quest to Build One World."

When we mythologize the ’60s, we lose sight of what’s truly ahead of us.

Katherine Anne Porter’s ‘Pale Horse, Pale Rider’ tells the tale of a pandemic she barely survived.

Nicholas Lemann’s history of 20th century corporations, Transaction Man, shows how an unrelenting faith in the market and profit doomed the American economy.

A new biography and TV show present Emily Dickinson as a self-aware artist who created a life that defied the limits placed on women.

Screwball comics wage a gleeful war on civilization and its discontents—armed mostly with water-pistols, stink bombs, and laughing gas.

Reflections on the problems with progressives’ central principle that activist government is the only mechanism able to solve a modern society’s problems.

The first Americans weren't one group of people; they arrived at different times, and likely by different methods.

Even Donald Trump’s most draconian and violent immigration policies are still circumscribed by the interests of capital.

Lincoln protected thousands of acres of California forest and wanted to restore the nation’s battle-ravaged countryside before he was assassinated.

A new book asks why the left fell out of love with Zionism, but what it reveals is why liberal Zionists fell out of love with the left.

If we want to fight capitalism, the US left has to figure out how to confront US empire.

They played essential behind-the-scenes roles as the American movie industry was taking off. What happened?

A new history of Andrew Johnson’s trial reminds us the impeachment is a tool to constrain executive abuse of power and publicize dissent on matters of policy.

Is it possible to write a good Civil War romance?

How a term that sounds inclusive is used to promote exclusion.

A new book argues that many seemingly isolated rebellions are better understood as a single protracted struggle.

A new book argues that US history has been a struggle between monopoly and democracy, but fails to address class and labor when decoding inequality.

Inequality comes in waves. The question is when this one will break.

A review of "Great Society: A New History," by Amity Shlaes.

Andrew Delbanco's new book positions the debate over fugitive slaves as a central factor in the nation's slide toward disunion.

Andrew Bacevich makes the case that America’s elites wasted the promise of the post-Cold War era.

During the Cold War, cops at home and military personnel abroad exchanged techniques and tactics to mete out repression and thwart leftist insurgencies.

A pioneering black editor, he worked closely with African-American workers to advance a liberatory black politics.

The fast-food age began with scrappy entrepreneurship, but corporate concentration has made the chains dull and uninspiring.

Remembering a time when composers mattered more.

Proudly embracing their role as outsiders, a group of writer-activists set out to create a cultural identity—and a literature—of their own.

The story of America is precisely the heroic story of pioneers who bring the American ideal again and again to the West.

A review of the most detailed examination yet published of slavery at Mount Vernon.