Excerpts

What prioritizing white happiness tells us about race and K-12 education.

According to John Wesley Powell, outside of the Pacific Northwest, the arid lands of the west could not be farmed without irrigation.

John Stuart Mill was an unusual man who lived an extraordinary life devoted to a set of problems that once again dominate political thought in the 21st century.

When a DJ called on listeners to destroy disco records in a Chicago stadium, things turned nasty.

The left's Pyrrhic victory in the culture wars.

Minnie Bruce Pratt shares her own story as a lesbian within the South, and the activism that occurred and the activism still ongoing.

Fifty years on, Nick Ut’s Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph, “Napalm Girl,” still has the power to shock. But can a picture change the world?

Edward Spicer's writings indicate an awareness of the deeply unjust circumstances that Japanese Americans found themselves in within Japanese internment camps.

A new history of Detroit’s struggles for clean air and water argues that municipal debt and austerity have furthered an ongoing environmental catastrophe.

Waverly Woodson treated at least 200 injured men on D-Day, despite being injured, himself.

News of the invasion spread quickly that morning. Phil Stern captured a city still processing the news—but his photos were lost for decades

A 1944 dispatch from Normandy.

This isn’t the first time the U.S. Postal Service has played a role in curbing women’s reproductive rights.

People have come up with a range of ingenious, harebrained, and sometimes grim but often remarkable ways to stay cool during a summer scorcher.

Among the nearly half a million atomic bomb victims and survivors were thousands of Japanese American citizens of the United States.

Soul City was a boondoggle—not a story of lost or forgotten roads tragically not taken.

What the modern world owes slavery. (It’s more than back wages).

A new book examines explores the ways that an uncritical celebration of “good” gays and “good” gayness can cause harm.

Harvard made headlines by announcing that it would devote $100 million to remedying “the harms of the university’s ties to slavery.”

On Annie Payson Call’s advice to tired nineteenth-century workers.

A historical Black burial ground, reclaimed.

A new book examines how the US government funded the growth of — and delegated governance to — the nonprofit sector.

As the war in Ukraine worsens, there’s little debate about Western policy choices. This is a mistake.

From the light-bulb dress to galvanic belts, electrified clothing offered a way to experience and conquer a mysterious and vigorous force.

A look back at the bicycle’s meteoric rise to the height of nineteenth century fashion, and its subsequent fall, provides striking parallels to today's bike culture.

In a span of less than 12 hours a German college professor set off a bomb in the U.S. Capitol & assaulted J.P. Morgan Jr. at his home on Long Island.

For people of color in particular, cemeteries can be a cruel reminders of trauma both past and present.

In 1978, an artist/activist hand-dyed and stitched the first rainbow flags for San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day Parade. The rest is LGBT history.

In early 1945, a six-panel comic in a U.S. pamphlet offered a visceral depiction of the Third Reich's killing machine.

Islam in America dates to the founding fathers, says Smithsonian’s religion curator Peter Manseau.

For the Pentagon, films like "Top Gun: Maverick" are more than just a movie.

Smithsonian curator of religion Peter Manseau weighs in on a history that must be told.

“It is a better likeness of Lincoln than anything in plaster, stone, marble, or bronze that I have ever seen."

A Southern Poverty Law Center study identified over 1,500 publicly-displayed symbols of the Confederacy in the South and beyond.

Before Julia Child became a chef, she worked for the forerunner of the CIA in Washington, developing shark repellent during World War II.

Denmark Vesey expressed the Bible’s anti-slavery messages.

Scientists have found toxic levels of the chemical at large. And some groups are making the case to produce even more.

A case of 18th-century politicking has stymied our ability to deal with a 21st-century crisis.

An alliance between Jewish activists and congressional neocons made Soviet Jewry a key issue in superpower relations—and reshaped American Jewish politics.

An intimate look at the creation of an iconic album.

Counterculture-inspired research flourished in the Age of Aquarius.

The Southern Baptist Convention is tearing itself apart over its leaders’ long-running cover-up of abusers in its ranks. But there’s a deeper reckoning below.

Authorities who investigated Jane Stanford’s mysterious death said the wealthy widow had no enemies. A new book finds that she had many.

The righteous rage of John Brown.

The annual celebration helped spur an anti-colonial movement for Africa.

The history of control and decontrol in the oil market.

John Huston's 1945 movie The Battle of San Pietro presents itself as a war documentary, but contains staged scenes. What should we make of it?

On the Grateful Dead's “New Speedway Boogie,” and the true end of the Sixties.

Kevin Driscoll’s study of early Internet communities contains a vision for a less hostile and homogenous future of social networking.

“We’re the virus.” So read a tweet in March praising reports of less pollution in countries under COVID-19 lockdown. By mid-April, it had nearly 300,000 likes.