Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
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From Chinese Exclusion to Pro-Palestinian Activism: The History of Politically Motivated Deportation

Removal orders targeting student activists echo America’s long past of jailing and expelling immigrants because of their race, or what they say or believe.
Glass etching superimposed on park landscape to visualize where buildings were.

America’s Forgotten Capital City

At Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texans flex their go-it-alone style.
Collage of the Battles of Lexington and Concord and patriotic imagery.

Revolution and Progress on Lexington Green

The American Revolution’s first battle is a reminder that liberty isn't the result of inevitable progress but a prize won by those willing to fight for it.
Collage of school children, church windows, and a map of Oklahoma territory.

Oklahoma Is Asking the Supreme Court to Ignore History

The Founders had disagreements about the role of religion in America’s public schools, but there was always one line they would not cross.
Two Vietnamese women mourn their relatives on April 29, 1975, at Bien Hoa military cemetery.

US Defeat in Vietnam Was the Right Outcome for an Unjust War

The US invasion of Vietnam was catastrophic for the Vietnamese people, resulting in millions of deaths. Fifty years ago, the US-backed regime finally collapsed.
Illustration of characters from "The Great Gatsby."

How “The Great Gatsby” Took Over High School

The classroom staple turns a hundred.

Milk Country

The making of Vermont's landscape.
Lethal injection table.
partner

Lethal Injection Is Not Based on Science

The history of the three-drug combo used in death-penalty executions. 
A painting of Marie-Louise Coidavid.
partner

The First and Last Queen of Haiti in Exile

Queen Marie-Louise outlived most of her family, yet her story about the revolution and its aftermath was rarely consulted by those writing the era’s history.
Rachel Cockerell’s “Melting Point" tells the story of an exiled people and their effort to find a place to call home.

When Jews Sought the Promised Land in Texas

While some Jewish exiles dreamed of a homeland in Palestine, the Jewish Territorial Organization fixed its hopes on Galveston.
Cover of "America, América" by Greg Grandin.

The Dialectic Lurking Behind the Brutality

Greg Grandin’s new book tells the story of US expansionism and its complex relationship with the rest of the New World.
Fiorello La Guardia.

How Mayor Fiorello La Guardia Transformed New York City

Zohran Mamdani’s campaign is questioning what a socialist might accomplish as mayor of NYC. To answer it, it’s worth looking back on Fiorello La Guardia.
Mary MacLane.

“I Am Making the World My Confessor”: Mary MacLane, the Wild Woman from Butte

In 1902, a woman named Mary MacLane from Butte, Montana, became an international sensation after publishing a scandalous journal at the age of 19.
A political cartoon of Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland emptying the U.S. treasury.

Radical Tariffs Aren’t New, But They Have Been Disastrous

An American story.
George W. Bush delivering a speech.

George W. Bush Lives on in Donald Trump’s Migrant Policies

The “war on terror” led to a sweeping curtailment of immigrants’ rights that swept up green card holders as well as citizens.
Supreme court passing from the robing room to the court chambers, 1881.
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Lacking a Demonstrable Source of Authority

On the case that provoked the courts to decide if the federal government had jurisdiction to exercise American criminal law over Native peoples on Native lands.
Sam Francis

He’s a Key Thinker of the Radical Right, But Is He All That?

Where the rediscovery of Sam Francis goes wrong.
Francis Townsend
partner

Creating the “Senior Citizen” Political Identity

On the movement that fought for old-age pensions during the Great Depression.
Chinese migrants wrapped in blankets on a beach, from the cover of "Camp of the Saints."
partner

Mutant Capitalism

How the dystopian visions of the nativist right are in keeping with a long tradition of neoliberal ideology.
John Quincy Adams
partner

Are You Not Large and Unwieldy Enough Already?

John Quincy Adams challenges the idea of an expanding American frontier. 
Henry James.

Henry James’s American Journey

Why his turn-of-the-century travelogue still resonates.
Workmen clearing cobwebs from exterior of the White House, c. 1920.
partner

How to Succeed in Government Without Really Trying

The long history of promising an “efficient” federal government. 
Edward Said.

Said’s Specter

Columbia is at war with its intellectual heritage.
rattlesnake

How the Rattlesnake Almost Became an Emblem of a Nascent America

On the centuries-long historical evolution of a serpentine symbol.
California gold miners, ca. 1850–1852.

A Gold Rush of Witnesses

Letters, diaries, and remembrances shared on JSTOR by University of the Pacific reveal the hardships of day-to-day life during the California Gold Rush.
The “Visscher Map of the New World” including North and South America, 1658.

The Impossibly Intertwined History of the Americas

A conversation with Greg Grandin about his groundbreaking new book "America, América: A New History of the New World."
Filmmaker Oliver Stone speaks to journalists following a hearing with the House Oversight Committee at the US Capitol on April 1, 2025, in Washington, DC.

Oliver Stone Goes to Washington

Legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone says we’re closer than ever to finally piecing together the mystery of November 22, 1963.
Catholic activists burn draft files to protest the Vietnam War in Catonsville, Maryland, 1968.

Resistance Reexamined

The complex, sometimes romanticized, but ultimately prophetic Catholic peace movement has critical lessons for today's America amid a genocidal war in Gaza.
Trump from behind, and the Washington monument.

How Trump Wants to Change History

Late last month, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to restore “truth and sanity to American history.”
An eagle grabbing the earth, focused on Latin America, in its talons.

What America Means to Latin Americans

In a new book, the Pulitzer Prize winner Greg Grandin tells the history of the hemisphere from south of the border.
William McKinley's  presidential inauguration.

A Warning for Democrats From the Gilded Age and the 1896 Election

Effective Republican organizing and intraparty divisions among Democrats solidified GOP political dominance until the 1930s.
U.S Custom House.

Lessons from Early America’s Tariff Wars

The 1790s debate shows that, even when they aim at moral goods, tariffs abet cronyism and corruption.
Shulamith Firestone, 1997.

When the Battle's Lost and Won

Shulamith Firestone and the burdens of prophecy.
City workers get their lunch at the Horn & Hardart automat in New York City, ca 1940.

Choice and Its Discontents

Today no one on either side of the political spectrum would present themselves as an enemy of choice. Sophia Rosenfeld exposes the complex legacy of this idea.
Justice John Roberts.

The Supreme Court Could Take Another Shot at Voting Rights

If the justices take up a case on Virginia’s felon disenfranchisement law, they’ll be burrowing back to Reconstruction-era jurisprudence.
Eugen Sandow flexing his bicep.

The Evolution of the Alpha Male Aesthetic

If you've noticed a certain look common to the manosphere, you're not mistaken. A visual identity has taken hold, with roots that trace back decades.
Huddie Lesbetter's draft registration card.

Secret Recordings Show President Roosevelt Debating Military Desegregation with Civil Rights Leaders

More than a year before Pearl Harbor, President FDR heard arguments from the civil rights leaders of the era for the desegregation of the military.
Illustration from the “Projected Trends” section of Hugh Ferriss’ The Metropolis of Tomorrow (1929).

Modern Babylon: Ziggurat Skyscrapers and Hugh Ferriss’ Retrofuturism

In the early twentieth century, architects turned to a newly discovered past to craft novel visions of the future: the ancient history of Mesopotamia.
An aerial view of houses in Jersey City, United States on July 13, 2024.

Is The ‘Predatory’ Property Tax An Instrument Of Oppression?

According to Andrew Kahrl, the property tax has been used to disposs black homeowners since the 19th century.
Miami's skyline with high-rises under construction.

How Dreams of Buried Pirate Treasure Enticed Americans to Flock to Florida During the Twenties

1925 marked the peak of the Florida land boom. But false advertising and natural disasters thwarted many settlers’ visions of striking it rich.
Minnijean Brown, Thelma Mothershed, and Melba Pattillo (three of the Little Rock Nine), and NAACP president Daisy Bates.

Selling Out Our Public Schools

For decades, the term “school choice” was widely and rightly dismissed as racist. Now it’s the law in thirty-three states.
National Museum of African American History and Culture.

What It Means to Tell the Truth About America

And what happens when empirical fact is labeled “improper ideology.”
US and Mexican immigrant rights activists march through the Arizona desert to draw attention to unjust immigration policies.

What the Birth of the Sanctuary Movement Teaches Us Today

The birth of the sanctuary movement some 45 years ago can teach us a lot about how to respond to today’s attacks on immigrants.
Abraham Lincoln

Was the Civil War Inevitable?

Before Lincoln turned the idea of “the Union” into a cause worth dying for, he tried other means of ending slavery in America.
Detail of landscape painting Villa Menaggio, Lago di Como by Sophia Peabody Hawthorne.

Transcending the Glass Ceiling

Five women who made important contributions to 19th-century American philosophy finally get their due.
Indigenous girl among a line of U.S. peace commissioners.

American History Needs More Names

Identifying Sophie Mousseau from a Civil War-Era photo helps us understand our complex past.
George Kennan

The Enigma of George Kennan

An exploration of the contrast between the supreme confidence of Kennan's policy prescriptions and the perpetual turbulence of his inner life.

Nooks and Corners of Old New York (1899)

A detailed guide to the old stories and landscapes of New York City, published in the last year of the 19th century.
Woodrow Wilson delivering his second innaugural address in front of a large crowd.

America Was at Its Trumpiest 100 Years Ago. Here’s How to Prevent the Worst.

During World War I, America lurched toward autocracy. Resistance was minimal.
A woman holding her head in distress, and a naked woman sitting on an illustration of a toy car pulled by string.

Frog-Free

The demystification of pregnancy.
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