Excerpts

Little Crow was one of the leaders of the Dakota Uprising of 1862, a conflict that began, as so many Indian wars did, because treaty rights were being ignored.

On the hundredth anniversary of Tennessee v. Scopes.

The last American crisis over civilian-military relations ended with a general’s historic choice.

On the inherent contradictions behind the American revolutionary dream.

How a son of European immigrants fought to keep Indian immigrants out of America.

Contrary to the story being told in textbooks, media, and museums, the police were not neutral bystanders.

The rise of remote work is only the latest in a long line of challenges that US business districts have faced. This time, cities have a chance to do it right.

The story of how corruption became legal in America isn't just about memos, movements, and legal strategies.

Remembering my father’s imprisonment at a Japanese prison camp.

The founding father’s long-overlooked passion for scientific inquiry.

Columbus lives on as a political and cultural symbol—hero, villain, myth—revealing how belief, not fact, shapes history.

On the legacy of the United States' involvement in the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Revolution.

Sarah Curtis: “Maybe we’ve just learned what my teenage daughter does not yet fully know: that to be held to a law is often to be loved.”

A memoir explores L.A.'s political culture after the Rodney King beating.

Unpacking the complexities surrounding Native authenticity.

Debt is the almost singular through line behind every major financial crisis.

In the 1970s, corporate America struck back at the forces attempting to rein it in. One of their tactics was a public service announcement.

Unpacking the sensationalist, and occasionally biased, work of Richard Harding Davis.

The use of the punitive tactic exploded a century after US officials had deemed it too torturous.

The first maps of the nuclear contamination of the world reinforced our understanding of the entire biosphere as a radically interconnected ecological space.

King recalled: “I liked his voice, though I had no idea he was getting ready to conquer the world.”

When Bruce Lee met Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, he was still known as Lew Alcindor, the most hyped young basketball star in history.

In the mid-19th century, governments on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border set out to recast North America’s political landscape.

On Ralph Waldo Emerson, his childhood in Boston, and his thoughts on mortality.

The Second Italo-Ethiopian War and the Spanish Civil War offered Melva L. Price an opportunity to examine the links between racism and fascism.

Joyce Johnson on the friendship between two famous outsiders.

Jack Kerouac, Malcolm Cowley, and the difficult birth of "On the Road."

On the groundbreaking work of the Japanese photographer who made Washington state his home.

We must see the world as actors of the past did: through a foggy windshield, not a rearview mirror, facing a future of radical uncertainty.

A Black socialist magazine urges solidarity and action in 1919.

Exploring ropemaking, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Jeremiah N. Reynolds’s wild tale.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope was renamed The Vera C. Rubin Observatory. This telescope is breaking new ground, just as Vera Rubin did in her lifetime.

Early American elites were fascinated with genealogy, despite the ways it attached them to the Old World.

New details of drug dealing and murder at North Carolina base, the command center for U.S. Special Forces.

Revisiting a turning point in the history of Israel’s occupation.

It wasn’t the music that drew them, but an intellectual celebrity: Frank Meyer.

An oral history of the coverage: what the United States attempted to cover up.

In the darkest days of the Iraq War, the highly secretive Joint Special Operations Command emerged as one of the most influential institutions in government.

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.