Excerpts

The American exchange organizers were unaware that the German pupils and staff were charged with an explicitly propagandistic mission.

For the white-robed, playing a black team was a gift-wrapped photo op, a chance to show that the Klan was part of the local community.

Americans of the interwar period were perfectly clear about one fact we have lost sight of today: all fascism is indigenous, by definition.

It was intended to be a tool of political power, sending a message against Black voting and serving as a gathering point for the Ku Klux Klan.

Many people celebrate the U.S. as a nation of immigrants, but nativism has infused its politics from the outset.

Decades before protests against mass incarceration galvanized the black freedom struggle, Malcolm indicted the entire justice system as racist.

A voice for working-class women and an icon for all kinds of women, Parton has maintained her star power throughout life phases and political cycles.

In 1943, Ansel Adams traveled to photograph Manzanar—one of the ten internment camps that together detained 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.

The truth about policies of Native American removal.

Don Cornelius had faith that Black culture would attract a mass audience, and a belief that Black culture should be in the hands of Black people.

Songs from Public Enemy and Ludacris have been heard at marches, continuing a tradition that dates back to the blues.

Why does the U.S. Army name its bases after generals it defeated?

The man who supposedly never told a lie figured out how to stretch the truth when it came to human bondage.

The electorate has consistently changed over time as politicians seek to shape it in their favor.

The untold story of the ideological realignment that upended the nation.

Immediately after 9/11, humorists struggled with what many called ‘the death of irony.’ Then ‘The Onion’ returned and showed everyone the way

A new behind-the-scenes book, “There She Was,” and a Smithsonian collecting initiative celebrate the pageant’s centennial.

On the nineteenth-century artists and thinkers who pictured a future of abundance powered by steam.

Jon Tracey discusses the history of the creation of the Gettysburg Virginia Monument and the true reason it was erected.

Documenting the New York City construction boom at the turn of the 20th century.

GOP-led state legislatures have not only prevented voters from exercising their rights as citizens, they have usurped local control to remove monuments legally.

In moving away from fossil fuels, some in aviation are thinking of bringing back helium-assisted flight.

Despite its universalist claims, the field is reckoning with a long legacy of racial exclusion.

The charges, while provocative, offer a framework to reckon with systemic racial injustice — past and present.

Romanticized notions of Southern gentility are at odds with historical reality as the lives, culture and contributions of the enslaved are becoming integral on tours.

From unjustified stops of Black teenagers to a device to torment people in custody, racist police brutality runs deep.

The USDA has become an inefficient monster that often promotes products that are bad for consumers and the environment. Let’s replace it with a Department of Food.

The history of anti-Chinese violence in Truckee, California, is as old as the town itself.

A counter-narrative to Samuel Moyn’s "Humane": drone warfare and the long history of liberal empire blurring the line between policing and endless war.

Private bunkers and the people who build them.

A review of "Escalante’s Dream: On the Trail of the Spanish Discovery of the Southwest."

These storylines portrayed those addicted to drugs and alcohol as lunatics whose only cure can come from punitive measures, abstinence, and “tough love.”

Dustin Tahmahkera details the life of the last chief of the Comanches, Quanah Parker.

“European and Indian men—as captors, brokers, and buyers—used captured and enslaved women to craft relationships of trade and reciprocity with one another.”

There are always three violences. The first is the violence itself.

"What the Catholic church wanted us to understand about women and anger—that we simply didn’t experience it—backfired spectacularly."

Preservationists like Jane Jacobs are urbanist heroes. But their rules can stifle.

Aaron Sorkin's new film dramatizes three pivotal moments in the lives of comedy legends Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

While he opposed slavery and southern secession early in his career, as president Andrew Johnson turned out to be an unsightly bigot.

Extending that compassion today could reverse past wrongs.

Fifty years later, the legacy of the National Cancer Act illustrates the need for a broad approach.

“Rescue Me,” on repeat.

Reiner, Stephen Colbert, Jordan Peele, Steve Carrell, Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus: Their comedy descends directly from the Works Progress Administration.

The new film is set in a now-bulldozed Black neighborhood, so why is it all about whites and Puerto Ricans? Because it really takes place in Los Angeles.

Two recent books put the reemergence of anti-immigrant sentiment in the Trump era into historical relief.

FDR managed inflation during World War II through government policy. Today’s calamities call for a similar approach.

Scientific research and historical accounts can help us identify and dissect the threat of ‘coercive persuasion.’

"If you read enough sources, you run into cases of slaves spending a lot of time over Christmas crying."

Understanding the battle over immunization—from the pre-Victorian era onward—between public health and the people may help in treating anti-vax sentiment.

On the failed dreams and forgotten ruins of William Hope Harvey.