Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
New on Bunk
Ken Martin and Ben Wikler at a DNC forum.

Ken Martin, Ben Wikler, and the DNC Chair Race’s Midwestern Moment

The region has unique political traditions tailor-made for the momentum gathering behind economic populism in the Democratic Party.
Jimmy Carter speaking in front of a row of solar panels.

Energy Is Central to American Politics. That All Started with Jimmy Carter.

We have yet to solve the problems that Carter confronted head-on as president.
Author Alexis Pauline Gumbs posing in a field of collard greens.

How Collard Greens Became a Symbol of Resilience and Tradition

While modern women poets have found inspiration, collard references appeared in racist limericks during Jim Crow.
Fred Grey photographed in front of a book shelf of law books.
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The History of Segregation Scholarships

A narrative not of brain drain but of Black aspiration.
Trent Reznor

Knots, Ties, and Lines: “The Downward Spiral” at Thirty

Nine Inch Nails, the Manson Family, and the contradictions of Los Angeles.
Overhead view of neighborhood in the Palisades destroyed by wildfires.
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The L.A. Fires Expose the Problem With Conservation Policy

For more than a century, conservation policy has focused on economic development and wisely using natural resources.
Protesters in the middle of a road holding a sign that displays the three downward arrows symbol and reads "destroy fascism."

Is Trump Hitler, or just… Woodrow Wilson?

Comparing Trump to Hitler and Mussolini obscures the basis of his mass appeal.
Pedestrians, buggies, and a streetcar in a Los Angeles intersection in 1910.

LA’s Traffic Ordinance Went Into Effect 100 Years Ago. It Changed Streets Across America.

The Ordinance, which prioritized cars on the city’s roadways, quickly became the template for the country.
Drawings of Sadie James and Charles Page over a map of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The True Story of Tulsa’s Forgotten Antihero, Sadie James

And a walk downtown in search of her saloon, the Bucket of Blood.
Federal employees wait for treatment at a public health dispensary.

Trump Isn’t the First to Upend the Federal Workforce Because of Race

President Woodrow Wilson presided over the segregation of government workers, putting Black people behind screens and in cages in 1913.
Black men stand on trains derailed by Sherman's destruction of infrastructure.

The Other Side of Sherman’s March

The general’s campaign through the South is known for its brutality against civilians. For the enslaved who followed his army, though, it was a shot at freedom.
Woman in a hospital bed reading a pamphlet called "After the Abortion."

Her “Health and Thus Her Life”

Abortion exceptions in legal history.
A flag depicting a hand pulling back the American flag to reveal a Confederate flag.

Patriotic Education and the End of History

Or, a brief history of today's erasure of history.
A graphic celebrating the American Bicentennial, with the original flag crossing the modern flag, and Independence Hall next to the Capitol building.

The Revolution at 250: A Conversation

What are the most important insights historians have offered about the American Revolution in the decades since the Bicentennial?
William McKinley making a campaign speech in 1896.

Why Trump Admires President McKinley, the Original ‘Tariff Man’

President Donald Trump says McKinley made the United States prosperous through tariffs. Historians say that’s an incomplete understanding of the 25th president.
A doctor vaccinating a patient.
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The Origins of the Anti-Vaccination Movement

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s nomination to lead HHS reflects the rising power of an anti-vaccination movement more than 100 years in the making.
Three identical pictures of the explosion of an atomic bomb with different coloring.

How Literature Predicted and Portrayed the Atom Bomb

On Pierrepoint B. Noyes, H.G. Wells, and the “Superweapons” of early science-fiction.
Ben Davis Jr. leaving courthouse, surrounded by crowd carrying signs bearing various slogans.

In 1930s NYC, Proportional Representation Boosted the Left

NYC history suggests that the Left might profitably revive proportional representation as a tool to build its electoral strength.
Women adjusting their makeup and hair in a women's restroom in the 1940s.

In the Ladies’ Loo

Gender-segregated bathrooms tell a story about who is and who is not welcome in public life.
Chinese workers standing in the streets.

The Long Shadow of the Chinese Exclusion Act

The true cost of the immigration policy can be measured in the generations of Chinese Americans who were never born.
Donald Trump half-obscured by the American flag.

Emperor Trump’s New Map

The president who built his fan base on isolationism is pivoting to a kind of imperialism that the U.S. hasn’t seen in decades.
President John F. Kennedy writing at desk in the Oval Office.

Kennedy Family Values

Why is America’s near-mythic dynasty so nasty up close?
Police officer speaking to a homeless person in a New York subway station.
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Attacks in New York City Renew Questions About Forced Mental Health Treatment

New York City’s renewed efforts to tackle homelessness and untreated mental illness is raising questions about civil liberties, safety and effective care.
Police officer, yellow tape, and abandoned bikes and lawnchairs after the Highland Park shooting.
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How Gun Violence and the Supreme Court Have Shaped Second Amendment Rights

Supreme Court rulings on gun laws highlight the struggle to balance individual rights and public safety.
President Trump at desk in Oval Office signing executive orders.

President Trump Promises to Make Government Efficient

He’ll run into the same roadblocks as Presidents Taft, Roosevelt, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush, among others.

The Historical Roots of Donald Trump’s Aggressive Nationalism

What the President’s confrontations with Panama, Greenland, Canada, and Colombia suggest about his expansionist vision.

The Naval Scientist Who Wanted To Know How Football Players Would Survive Nuclear War

It wouldn’t take much, the fan explained, just some radioactive material inside the players, who would then undergo a physical examination.

How the U.S. Gamed the Law of the Sea

It made itself bigger.

The Political Force Behind Zionism

A new book traces the rise of the Israel lobby and the challenges it has faced as global criticism of Israel has intensified.
Doug Wilson

Doug Wilson’s Religious Empire Expanding in the Northwest

While hosting a conference featuring his defense of "Southern Slavery," Douglas Wilson exposes the radicalism of his growing "Christian" empire.
University of Ohio
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The Late Unpleasantness in Idaho: Southern Slavery and the Culture Wars

Culture warriors envision a future in which the educational power of universities will be harnessed to the propagation of a “biblical worldview” nationwide.
Frances Perkins

How the First ‘Madam Secretary’ Fought to Save Jewish Refugees Fleeing From Nazi Germany

Frances Perkins’ challenged the United States’ restrictive immigration policies as FDR’s Secretary of Labor.
Senator Abraham Ribicoff
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The North’s Shameful Refusal to Face Its Own Tangled Racial Past

What we should learn from Senator Abraham Ribicoff’s failed attempt.
Joe Biden from ca. 1975.

How a Young Joe Biden Turned Liberals Against Integration

Forty years ago, the Senate supported school busing—until a 32-year-old changed his mind.
Open books.

James Baldwin: ‘I Did Not Want to Weep for Martin, Tears Seemed Futile’

In memory of Martin Luther King Jr, a look back on his funeral.
A drawing of a person staring at two different smartphones, with robotic arms holding their head in place.

What If the Attention Crisis Is All a Distraction?

From the pianoforte to the smartphone, each wave of tech has sparked fears of brain rot. But the problem isn’t our ability to focus—it’s what we’re focusing on.
A photograph of the battlefield at Antietam.
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A Remote Reality

Depictions of Antietam couldn’t possible capture the magnitude of the battle’s horror.
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It’s Time to Make Election Day a Holiday in Law and Spirit

We need to bring back the celebratory atmosphere that animated Election Day in the 19th century.

Opus Dei, Embezzlement, and Human Trafficking

The Catholic order has branches all over the world, and a deep history of unethical and illegal behavior.
Jesus blessing two men who are kneeling in prayer.

Lusting for Zion

A new book questions what we think we know about heterosexuality and Latter-day Saints, or Mormons.
Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman: The Original Substacker

Publishing needs his democratic spirit.

Is the Love Song Dying?

We categorized songs in the Billboard Top 10 to see if love songs are on the decline.
Nicholas Said, an African American Muslim in his Union Army uniform.

Fighting for Freedom: The Little-Known Story of Muslims and the Civil War

The stories of two Muslim immigrants who fought for the Union show that the American Civil War was an international fight.
Ronald Reagan

Revisiting the Panama Canal Debate of 1978

The uproar over Trump’s remarks about the Canal recalls a lively debate from the late 1970s.
A collage of the United States Constitution, seal, and a hand holding two small American flags.

The Attack on Birthright Citizenship Is a Big Test for the Constitution

Does the text mean what it plainly says?
Trump's airplane in Greenland.
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Why Trump Wants Greenland—And Why He Probably Won't Get It

He's not the first to set his sights on the island.
John Tower; Pete Hegseth.

In 1989, Senators Faced a Pete Hegseth Situation Very Differently

I covered the 1989 fight over George H.W. Bush's secretary of defense nominee. It feels awfully familiar.
Workers with shovels constructing the Panama Canal.
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Trump’s Talk of the Panama Canal Taps Into Old Myths About U.S. Power

By threatening to reclaim the Panama Canal, Trump is evoking false stories about U.S. beneficence.
Stamp commemorating "Contributors To The Cause... Haym Salomon, Financial Hero."

Dusting Off the Old Stories

What does the Jewish experience in the Revolutionary War say about America?
Colorful, brightly lit interior of Washington Cathedral.

Reclaiming Medievalism

Washington Cathedral’s break with Confederate memory.
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