Excerpts

In our flattened historical imagination, pictures of atrocity and those of progress can coincide in unsettling ways.

Emily Dickinson and the woman in her orbit.

Without New York Times vs. Sullivan, freedom of speech and the press could be drastically truncated.

Ulysses S. Grant was overlooked by historians and underestimated by contemporaries. H.W. Brands reevaluates Grant’s presidency.

In the 60s and 70s, spiraling prices for staples like meat and gasoline wreaked havoc on the U.S. economy, thanks to political and policy mistakes.

Before the word processor, perfect copy was the domain of the typist—not the literary genius.

In the 1950s and 1960s, a new generation of American artists began to think of advertising and commercial imagery as the new avant-garde.

Indigenous nations are spearheading a movement to restore buffalo to the American landscape.

The assassination of the president is part of a pattern that undermines democracy.

A new book shows how southern evangelicals looked to the Bible to justify their opposition to racial integration.

After the assassination of the Haitian president, the U.S. should avoid old patterns of interference.

The rise and fall of the iconic sandwich has paralleled changes in Americans' economic conditions.

The Trumpist wing of the GOP uses history as a bludgeon, without regard to context, logic, or proportionality.

In the decades after the Civil War, Black Americans warned of the dangers of Confederate monuments.

Fearful of increasing participation, elites of the era attempted to rein in democracy.

The more sons a Founding Father had, the more supportive he was of a strong centralized government.

Revisiting America's first witch hunt — and discovering how much of it was a family affair. My family, that is.

The “border” is not a line on the ground, but a tool that enables violence and surveillance.

Black archivists, activists, and artists are fighting for justice and ethical remembrance — and reimagining the archive itself.

Today, the legendary deputy U.S. marshal is widely believed to be the real Lone Ranger. But his true legacy is even greater.

Decades of stigmatizing and trying to police the homeless have perpetuated the problem.

Revolutionary Americans adopted native snakes as symbols for their cause. Why?

A New Deal program to restore Totem Poles in Alaska provided jobs and boosted tourism, but it ignored their history and significance within Native culture.

Apparently some people communed with spirits to locate the first underground oil reserves.

From “The Old Farmer’s Almanac” to “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” what do bestselling guides to self-improvement reveal about the United States?

In the course of research about the Red Summer of 1919, a historian in Maine uncovers a disturbing event that took place on her own campus.

When African Americans allied themselves with the British, the Patriots were enraged, and they acted.

How racial hierarchies are embedded within the archival standards and practices that legitimize historical memory.

A new exhibition makes a powerful statement about the oversights of American history and America’s art history.

The restoration of the Air Force Academy Chapel is the U.S.’s most complex modernist preservation project ever.

The writer’s signature style of ending—a final, thrilling note—has the touch of magic that distinguishes the form at its best.

The history of racism, slavery and its impacts on American society is essential and appropriate for school history classes.

Trans Americans have taken to the courts for decades to fight against the notion that they are a threat.

Joni Mitchell might not have wanted to be the glamorous bard of women’s rising consciousness, but with “Blue,” she became just that.

The fight over the American Jobs Plan reflects a long history of competing visions of public works—and, most of all, who should benefit from rebuilding.

The incredible story of how a disgraced Civil War general became one of the best-selling novelists in American history.

A new creative history comes closer than ever to giving us access to Turner’s visionary life.

Wally Funk has been ready to become an astronaut for six decades.

For the Philippines, independence from the United States came with strings attached.

Fifty years later, The Yellow Pages stand as a testament to grassroots ingenuity and the radical idealism of '70s counterculture.

He helped build Jewish American support for Israel. What’s his legacy now?

After the discovery of 751 unmarked graves at the site of a former school for Native children in Canada, it is time to investigate similar abuses in the U.S.

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers on how her mother overcame voter suppression and became an activist in her community.

Failures in prosecuting German businesses who profited in Nazi Germany show how far Europe and America were willing to go to protect capitalism.

Charles Sumner and the fight for equal naturalization rights.

In a growing number of states, the GOP is pushing “Don’t Say Gay” laws to prevent students from learning about the triumphs and struggles of LGBTQ Americans.

A Vietnamese politician and an American academic led Michigan State University into a nation-building experiment and pulled America deeper into war.

As wartime labor shortages depleted police forces, and fear of crime grew, chiefs turned to new initiatives to strengthen and professionalize their officers.

A new PBS documentary investigates the legacy of one of the most dangerous pollutants on the planet, an unsettling cover-up, and the fight for accountability.

America’s worst secretary of defense never expressed a quiver of regret.