Excerpts

The emotional roller coaster that changed the course of the Civil Rights Movement.

“Horses were a part of the daily fabric of life for many enslaved Black people.”

Elbridge Ayer Burbank’s haunting paintings capture a likeness that was only ever real from the vantage point of a White man with a gun, canvas, or camera.

The 21st century American city was forged in the embers of the 1970s arson wave.

On the grim legacy of Ronald Reagan.

Part of what defines Pittsburgh literature is the transcendent in the prosaic, the sacred in the profane. An intimation of beauty amid a kingdom of ugliness.

Reflecting on his decades-long career, the historian considers what his field of study owes to the public.

On the iconic conservation legacy of Theodore Roosevelt and the perception that the national parks and monuments he created were previously untouched and empty.

Art, politics, and revolution intertwined as transatlantic Patriots used wax, paint, and wit to shape the fight for American independence.

In the book “Rooted,” activist and writer Brea Baker elucidates the thread between limited Black land ownership and the racial wealth gap.

On the unblissful union between Miriam Leslie and Willie Wilde.

People tend to assume they know exactly what the Cold War was and when it ended. Anders Stephanson argues that this standard chronology doesn’t fit the facts.

"It is only stereotypes of Indians as primitive that make their power to transform markets surprising."

In 1864 San Francisco, Twain found hardship, Bohemia, and his voice—transforming from local reporter to rising literary force.

On daguerreotypes, William Henry Fox Talbot, and darkroom dangers.

On the intersection of environmental contamination and violence in the Pacific Northwest.

The 1893 World’s Fair and the origins of Aunt Jemima.

From slum clearance to beatnik protests, how Greenwich Village became a battleground over race, art, and redevelopment.

The domestic and international dynamics of the early days of the Civil War.

On the preparation and aftershocks of the attack that marked the beginning of the Nuclear Age.

The strange fate of mixed-race families in prisons during World War II.

Thousands of left-wing American Jews have protested Israel. They are taking part in a tradition of anti-Zionist Jewish radicalism.

On the eccentric, creative minds behind McKim, Meade and White.

The men who set off the nuclear age tell the tale in their own words.

How media technologies made themselves at home in one of the most private spaces of modern life.

Chinese immigrants, the queue, and the boundaries of political citizenship.

At the turn of the century in upstate New York, one tiny town learned there was money to make in the jailing of Chinese migrants.

Jails have been foundational to immigration enforcement for over a century—and have always operated with a staggering absence of oversight and public awareness.

Two stories from the 19th century about government records being falsified to foment distrust of nonwhite Americans.

On Irving Howe and the New Left.

A group of early 20th-century Catholics sought to impose their standards of morality onto the growing and scandal-ridden Hollywood film industry.

1988 was a pivotal year in how “white liberals” are perceived by their fellow Americans.

"Although the lesson of progressivism took a while to sink in, over time Grinnell resolved to do whatever he could to forestall the sundering of his world."

In their time, “Jaws” and “Nashville” were regarded as Watergate films, and both were in production as the Watergate disaster played its final act.

On the slow path to federal action on emancipation during the Civil War.

“When you invent the plane, you also invent the plane crash.”

A history of wealth, enterprise, and family dysfunction.

Texans left an enduring mark on the gunfighter era. The frontier was a darker place because of it.

The charged meaning of hair in 19th-century America.

Why are avocados everywhere?

In the relationship between humans and raccoons, the black-masked mammals have played many roles.

An oral history of the tabloid race to cover the serial killer.

The state of design in 1970.

On the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, racism, and federal power.

The aviator’s publicity-mad husband, George Palmer Putnam, kept pushing her to risk her life for the sake of fame.

Historians depict late 19th-century American business elites as agents of progress, but many of them could also be called “terrorists.”

Teddy Dreiser tries to make it.

Dan Nadel on the formative awkward adolescence of an iconic American cartoonist.

Ryan White changed perceptions of the disease in the United States.

In 1965, the two intellectual giants squared off in a debate at Cambridge. It didn’t go quite as Buckley hoped.