Excerpts

Why assessing the state of the world is harder than it sounds.

How Hollywood tried to fight fascism and ended up blacklisting suspected Communists.

“Very fine people”—fathers and husbands, as well as mothers and daughters—have always been central to the work of white supremacy.

Five historians weigh in on a new book about the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

"Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” by Mark Bray, is part history, part how-to.

Wildfires in the American West are becoming ever more prevalent and destructive. How did we get to this point?

The trials of Jimmy Carter.

The food pages of newspapers were probably some of the first feminist writing many women read.

The Court got it right—but it's not a conclusion we should be entirely comfortable with.

A review of Stephen Brumwell's most recent book.

Neoliberalism set out not to demolish the state, but to create an international order strong enough to override democracy in the service of private property.

A new book asks: Can the surplus of capitalist exploitation be used to aid those on whose backs this surplus is generated?

Before the Civil War, many Southern leaders hoped to expand slavery even beyond the nation's borders.

Review of The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution, by Michael J. Klarman.

A review of a handful of new books that embody the new liberal originalism.

In her newest book, Barbara Ehrenreich attacks the "epidemic" of wellness.

Why do people hike?

Before you grab the 'raw,' some thoughts on how food was before safety and labeling regs were passed.

How John Marshall, Joseph Story, and Roger Taney strengthened the institution of slavery and embedded in the law a systemic hostility to fundamental freedom and basic justice.

A review on the many publications about Henry David Thoreau's life for the bicentennial anniversary of his birthday.

But can locally empowered communities really fix our schools' problems?

The violent rise of white supremacy after the Vietnam War.

Zora Neale Hurston’s long-lost oral history with one of the last survivors of the Atlantic slave trade.

A new book explores the nation’s now-faded preoccupation with the 'epidemic' of hunched bodies.

Researchers suggest effects of the Colonial Era can be detected in rocks or even air.

In her new book, ‘True Sex,’ historian Emily Skidmore looks at their lives and how society has treated them.

A review of Deirdre Cooper Owens' "Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology."

The document we celebrate today wasn't just the work of Thomas Jefferson's individual genius. Everyone was doing it.

Remembering a time when a toxic cocktail of threats, fear, and misunderstanding nearly led us down the path to Armageddon.

240 years after the American Revolution, debates over how to interpret the conflict and its leaders continue.

A new biography offers a fair-minded portrait of a vain moralist and political visionary whose certitude exceeded his judgment.

In a new book, top historians discuss the musical’s educational value, historical accuracy and racial revisionism.

How can Americans have such different memories of slavery?

Fred Kaplan's new book asks why it took Abraham Lincoln so long to embrace emancipation.

The movement finally gets the big, bold history it deserves.

A nation divided, even at birth.

Today, 1 in 3 American babies are delivered via the procedure, twice what the World Health Organization recommends.

Scott W. Stern’s book documents a decades-long program to incarcerate “promiscuous” women.

Many Americans could have gone either way during the Revolution.

A review of "American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals during the Revolutionary Era."

Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters in the ’60s.

A reflection on Zora Neale Hurston’s newly-published book, "Barracoon."

How is it that the era of neoliberalism coincides almost perfectly with the triumphant rise of a discourse of human rights?

David Blight reviews Ron Chernow's biography of Ulysses S. Grant.

How do ideological debates on gender roles influence the abortion debate?

Meet the good white mothers, PTA members, and newspaper columnists who were also committed white supremacists.

From Benjamin Franklin to Quora, how advice has shaped Americans’ behavior and expectations of the world.

The perils of comparing Trump to twentieth-century dictators.

A new book by Eric Lott frames white appropriation of blackness as containing the possibility of greater racial solidarity.

Despite what Steve King says, the U.S. was never a Christian nation.