Excerpts

The original book is far more grisly than the beloved Disney classic—and has an unsettling message about humanity.

The white pine known as Tree 103 had lost the dewy glow that it had back in 1675.

The erasure of Black leaders from the most misunderstood period in American history.

How the 33rd president finagled his way to a post–White House fortune — and created a damaging precedent.

One of the last survivors of Boston’s Gangland War of the 1960s opens up about his notorious past.

A short history of a made-up constitutional doctrine that gives presidents too much power.

The girl sleuth, now the star of a TV show, has been eased into the canon. In the process, she’s shed the politics that motivated her creation.

Julian Fellowes' new series dramatizes the late 19th-century clash between New York City's old and new monied elite.

Mark Twain would be hopelessly out of favor with both wings of the modern duopoly.

A remarkable blues musician emerged from obscurity in 1959, but something about him just didn’t seem right.

They weren't about to let all that good camel hair go to waste.

A new book traces the tactics of groundbreaking lawyer Constance Baker Motley amid pivotal protests in Birmingham.

Amid all the suffering and death, friends and supporters arose in unexpected—often religious—places.

How the 'critical race theory' debate is crashing headlong into efforts to update social studies standards.

A correctional officer’s history of 19th century prisons and modern-day parallels. From Sing Sing to suicide watch, torture treads a fine line.

New maps can revive Cherokee place names in Southern Appalachia and restore crucial knowledge amid an environmental catastrophe.

A historian of global health explains how the lack of ICU beds in low-income communities is the result of government spending cuts dating back to the 1970s.

Untold stories of American diplomats who "lost" China.

U.S. government policies must continue to support physical and social infrastructure spending amid the continuing pandemic to avoid ‘stagflation’.

How a cartoon gamine midwifed the graphic novel—and the modern conservative movement.

World War I saw the availability of potash plummet, while its price doubled. The US found this critical component for multiple industries in Pacific kelp.

How come it's so hard to go in sweet privacy when you're out and about?

A collaborative project by legal scholars sets out to make visible the vast array of legal precedents based on cases involving enslaved people.

For a century, student activists have demanded a say in their schools.

A new book argues that mail service played a critical role in the U.S. government’s westward expansion and occupation of Native lands.

Pregnant and facing decades in prison, the mother of Tupac Shakur fought for her life — and triumphed — in the trial of the Panther 21.

Scholars are unraveling the myths surrounding the 1621 feast, which found the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag cementing a newly established alliance.

Refusing myths of joy and pain in slave narratives.

Abraham Lincoln proclaimed freedom for enslaved people in America on January 1, 1863. Today, we've annotated the Emancipation Proclamation for readers.

The ivory-billed woodpecker hasn't been seen for decades. The government is ready to declare it extinct—but at what cost?

When it seemed that steel had lost its gleam with American consumers, the industry turned to marketing to make it shine again.

“The social revolution which is taking place in this country is not an isolated, detached phenomenon. It is part of a worldwide revolution that is taking place.”

The King holiday is more than a time for reflection. It’s really a time for provocation.

When states ban antiracism history from schools, they're disavowing what King stood for.

In World War I, the Victory Garden movement encouraged people to grow their own food to conserve home-front supplies. But kids' gardens had planted the roots.

Insuring against the cost of insurance itself in Revolutionary-era America.

Union activists linked the struggle for black equality in housing, employment, and at the ballot box, to the broader struggle against capitalist domination.

During World War II, a group of African American sailors was chosen to integrate the Naval Officer Corps, forever changing what was possible in the U.S. Navy.

Pheasants? 'Dickory dock'? Toyland? Here's how a narrow slice of American history changed the holidays forever.

The best-selling musical artist in the world in 1969, Johnny Cash sang of (and for) the "forgotten Americans": the imprisoned men of all races.

The farm tractor wasn’t born overnight. Perfecting it led to a three-way battle between Ford, John Deere and International Harvester.

The story of President Andrew Jackson's 1,400-pound block of cheese.

Promoters and performers in pro wrestling began increasingly prizing entertainment value over maintaining the appearance of legitimate contests.

Almon F. Rockwell's newly resurfaced journals, excerpted exclusively here, offer an incisive account of the assassinated presidents' final moments.

The trailblazing Black labor leader and civil rights activist took her fight for equality from the packinghouse to the pulpit.

Before the rise of macroeconomics that accompanied World War II, price determination was a central problem of economic thought.

'Did slavery make home always somewhere else?'

You can't tell the story of Midwestern cities like Toledo without being honest about their white supremacy problems.

Actions by the medical profession in the 1970s still reverberate today.

When states began restricting labor by children, verifying a person's age became an important means of enforcement.