Excerpts

"Everything's sort of layered on a false understanding of history."

Cate Doty on the evolution of a society mainstay.

How photography rose from the margins of the art world to occupy its vital center.

A collection of well-funded UFO obsessives are using their Capitol Hill connections to launder some outré, and potentially dangerous, ideas.

Objections to the appointment of Nikole Hannah-Jones to an academic chair are the latest instance of conservatives using the state to suppress "dangerous" ideas.

When factories created a population of tired workers, a new frontier in fatigue studies was born.

One hundred years after the Tulsa Race Massacre, community members still can’t get the federal government to recognize Greenwood’s significance.

Thaddeus Stevens was a fierce opponent of the “odious” compromises in the Constitution, and of the North’s compromises after the Civil War.

One of the largest mass lynchings in the United States targeted Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles.

Decades before 'Zoom fatigue' broke our spirits, the so-called computer revolution brought with it a world of pain previously unknown to humankind.

In 1971, a wave of Black artists released explosive new work that put its politics front and center.

What does it mean to reform a game based on a violent history of land theft and appropriation?

Audrey Clare Farley on the scientists who weaponized biology.

In a new book, historian Nicole Eustace reveals Indigenous calls for meaningful restitution and reconciliation rather than retribution.

If Booker T. Washington never knew when he was born, how are we so sure about it now?

Mexican-American workers have a long tradition of radical organizing, stretching back to the days of the IWW and the mid-century Communist Party.

Louisiana’s petroleum industry profits from exploiting historic inequalities, showing how slavery laid the groundwork for environmental racism.

For some Americans, history isn’t the story of what actually happened; it’s the story they want to believe.

Organizing and advocacy are key when confronting bigotry.

The theory, drawing the ire of the right, can help us understand our past.

Fixating on Black vaccine skepticism obscures a rich history of Black medical and scientific innovation.

A Virginia congressman has filed a bill to make the swamp a National Heritage Site.

Reflections on "A Love Supreme," artistic transformation, and the Black Arts Movement.

Lovejoy, who ran a weekly paper called the Observer, was repeatedly targeted by mobs over his persistent writings against slavery.

America’s bold response to the Soviet Union depended on an unknown spy agency operative whose story can at last be told.

A prominent intellectual and naturalist, the Maryland native wrote extensively on natural phenomena and anti-slavery causes.

How does Black food go viral among white folks?

The filing cabinet was critical to the information infrastructure of 20th-century nation states and financial systems.

For care in pregnancy and childbirth, Black parents are turning to a traditional practice.

Mark Bittman’s new history looks at the economy and politics of junk food.

As a diagnosis, it’s too vague to be helpful—but its rise tells us a lot about the way we work.

The “great replacement theory” is nothing new.

A new book tells the forgotten story of fugitive slaves who found freedom south of the border.

The roots of “protecting children” in U.S. political rhetoric lie in efforts to defend white supremacy.

I can’t ignore what this country has done to Black people. How do I find my place in it?

Americans have always been deeply divided.

How the radical documentarians of the Workers' Film and Photo League put their art in the service of social movements.

How 1980s MTV helped my students understand the Cold War.

New Harmony has attracted eccentric spiritual groups, social reformers, intellectuals, and artists.

Detroit police killed hundreds of unarmed Blacks during the civil rights movement. Their ability to get away with it shows why most proposals for police reform are bound to fail.

To our surprise, most received a well-rounded education on the history of Black people in America. Just kidding.

A story about dogs used to fight in World War II and what became of them.

Disney gets inventive when they need to circumvent white people’s historical responsibility for genocidal atrocities — and queerness is a useful scapegoat.

The first volume of Frederik Logevall’s biography of JFK reveals the scope of his ambition and the weakness of his political commitments.

The wealthy textile manufacturer harbored ambitions that went far beyond the well-being of his own workforce and depleted his fortune.

A conversation between a historian and the creator of a new documentary short about NRA leader Harlon Carter.

Dispelling myths of entrepreneurial exceptionalism, a sweeping new history of U.S. capitalism finds that economic gains have always been driven by the state.

How culture fueled the infamous police decision.

An ancient concept, asylum has become just another political tool in the hands of our government.

The tales of the three fallen senators, as well as some other notable beefs in history.