Excerpts

Examining enslaved mothers and antislavery literature on the eve of war.

Watching the Ken Burns series on the U.S. and the Holocaust and thinking about American folk music.

The modern misunderstanding of the term "people of color" and the racial categories associated.

In the wake of economic crises, liberal democracies proved most adept at imposing austerity.

Shows from "Mr. Belvedere" to "Grace Under Fire" fought ignorance and prejudice with more care and passion than many who had been elected to public office

A commitment to internationalism helped build multi-ethnic campaigns within the more radical and anti-authoritarian side of the US labor movement.

A new history of the Civil War and Reconstruction examines the ways in which Black Americans formed networks of self-reliance in their pursuit of emancipation.

Remember Dan White? He was the Kyle Rittenhouse of his day. No wonder Tucker Carlson loves him.

A look at voter rights through political cartoons.

People continue to interpret the U.S. Constitution in different ways. One way is an originalist framework that favors the Founding Father's intent in 1787.

A new book details the cooperative practices of Black farmers in the Deep South and Detroit who played a key role in the Civil Rights movement.

Marc Dollinger argues that the conventional wisdom of Black and Jewish harmony during the civil rights era is flawed. The real story has lessons for today.

Our 26th President is lauded as an environmentalist, as well as an empire builder.

Produced by the master entertainer P. T. Barnum, a melodrama about the dangers of alcohol was the first show to run for a hundred performances in New York City.

Today, mourning attire is subdued and dutiful. It wasn’t always that way.

How Forest Lawn Memorial-Park, a star-studded cemetery in Los Angeles, corporatized mourning in America.

"Blonde," a heavily fictionalized film by Andrew Dominik, explores the star's life and legend in a narrative that's equal parts glamorous and disturbing.

We want to acknowledge — and learn from — our history.

Japanese-American internment camp newspapers.

A southerner discovers the inaccuracy of the the myths he grew up with, and slowly comes to terms with his connection to the Civil War.

The nationwide spread of a counterculture.

The dramatic story of the abolitionist mail crisis of 1835.

The founder of the Olympic Project for Human Rights talks about the iconic protest by Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the winners’ podium in 1968.

As Republicans denounce climate change as a “hoax” and dismantle the environmental regulatory state they worked to build, we are left to wonder: What happened?

However the Little Ice Age came to be, we now know that climatic cooling had profound consequences for contemporary societies.

The problem no longer has no name, and yet we refuse to solve it.

Before social media communities formed around shared concerns, interests, politics, and identity, print media connected communities.

A contemporary Atlantic writer reflects on one of the voices from the magazine's archives who helped shape the publication—and the nation.

Everyone would benefit from new rules forcing greater transparency in political donations.

A contemporary Atlantic writer reflects on one of the voices from the magazine's archives who helped shape the publication—and the nation.

65 years ago this week, Edwin Walker helped enforce Little Rock integration. Then he devoted himself to segregation.

Aaron Burr was the highest-ranking official to stand trial for treason, which some people have invoked now amid probes into ex-president Donald Trump.

A contemporary Atlantic writer reflects on one of the voices from the magazine's archives who helped shape the publication—and the nation.

A time before “everyone” knew the story of Christopher Columbus, and the role of Washington Irving’s massive biography in creating the heroic Columbus myth.

“It’s important to study history if you want to be an intelligent citizen in a democracy.”

Jews have long been feared as the power behind inexplicable evils. Responsibility for the African slave trade has recently been added to this list of crimes.

The phrase "trail of tears" resonates in American conversation because the country is still coming to terms with what happened and what it means.

Right and left are united in a vulgar form of historicism.

Why have Americans been obsessed with this one loss rather than dozens of victories?

The Hat Riots of 1922 show how arbitrary, elite rules can spur civil unrest.

“Big money alone does not fully explain the Republican embrace of the gospel of more.”

Few who encounter Positive Psychology via self-help books and therapy know that its gender politics valorize the nuclear family and heterosexual monogamy.

Traditional Supreme Court precedent may depend too much on substantive due process to safeguard human rights.

What happens when forged documents enter the historical record?

In a novelized biography of Samuel Sewell, a greater mystery than what bedeviled the girls is what motivated a righteous man to condemn them for witchcraft.

President Ford’s unconditional pardon of Richard Nixon created political controversy. It also tarnished Ford’s own reputation with the American public.

By documenting how public debt produced our present nightmare, Destin Jenkins allows us to dream about using public money to mend the ills of our era.

In September 1868, Southern white Democrats hunted down around 200 African-Americans in an effort to suppress voter turnout.

Rock music owes much of its claim to coolness to the Christian faith.

A visual record of the largest aerial bombardment in history.