Excerpts

History suggests that a more discreet American presence in Afghanistan will be a provocation rather than a source of security.

A new book presents an expansive vision of soul music.

The Cold War may be over, but an arms race continues, even as safeguards once in place have fallen away.

It's worth considering how the two images of the beaver – one focused upon its hind parts and the other upon its industry – are but two acts in a single history.

The Amazon CEO's vision of space settlements draws on 1970s thinking, without adding anything new.

Undocumented Black migrants struggle to have their asylum rights recognized in the United States. Groups have been asking President Biden to stop deportations.

For the great American poet, the peculiar qualities of grass suggested a way to resolve the tension between the individual and the group.

Orisanmi Burton reflects on the legacy of the Panther 21 on the 50th anniversary (to the day) of their acquittal.

When germ theory displaced the idea of "miasmas" we lost important knowledge about tackling airborne disease.

The domestic slave trade was no sideshow in our history, and slave traders were not bit players on the stage.

A group of activists is calling attention to the legacy of slavery encoded in the names of New York City’s streets and neighborhoods.

Conservatives have weaponized Americans’ desire to help to attack the social safety net.

Lady Bird Johnson and Nancy Reagan grappled with the contradictions of a role that is at once public and private, superficial and serious.

Joe Biden has met with scholars to discuss his presidency and likely legacy—but what are we to make of his special relationship with historian Jon Meacham?

Family blessings are a curse, or they can be. The life of Henry Adams explained in his book Education.

In 1970, an image of a dead protester at Kent State became iconic. But what happened to the 14-year-old kneeling next to him?

A new book tackles the deep and persistent American intellectual tradition we might call Science-hesitant.

The inside story of Mayday 1971 and the largest mass arrest in US history.

"The Dead are Arising" may be the best Malcolm X biography yet. But its author seems unsure of how to write about a religion outside the American mainstream.

Patrick Blanchfield tracks the long-standing entanglement of guns and religion in the United States. Part 1 of 2.

Thomas Paine, the most radical of American revolutionaries, perhaps most fully understood the millennial potential of the new Republic.

His posthumously released novel, “The Man Who Lived Underground,” was written during a crisis of political faith.

History must be acknowledged before justice can be done.

If we don’t understand the history of Asian exclusion, we cannot understand the racist hatred of the present.

Immigration has been a defining issue in a campaign before, and the consequences transformed the Democratic Party.

Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform was supposed to move needy families off government handouts and onto a path out of poverty. How has it turned out?

Colin Kaepernick continues a long tradition of athletes using their celebrity to protest America's racial inequality.

A case from almost a decade ago reveals the peril faced by whistleblowers seeking to expose wrongdoing.

From the 1930s to the 1950s a radical surgery — the lobotomy — would forever change our understanding and treatment of the mentally ill.

Today, despite their mixed record, private prison companies are overseeing the vast majority of undocumented migrants.

In the 1990s, a handful of researchers inspired panic with a dire but flawed prediction: the imminent arrival of a new breed of “superpredators.”

Unfair maneuver or a strong warning to would-be criminals?

Stella Liebeck was vilified when she was awarded millions after spilling McDonald's coffee in her lap. But the facts told another story.

Anger over policing and inequality boiled over more than 50 years ago, and a landmark report warned that it could happen again.

Politics, public health and a pandemic. What we didn’t learn from HIV.

Dr. Larry Brilliant, who helped eradicate smallpox, says past epidemics can teach us to fight coronavirus.

Retro Report explores decades of conspiracy theories -- from the John F. Kennedy assassination to Pizzagate -- and what they can tell us about the world today.

Decades after Dr. Jonas Salk opposed patenting the polio vaccine, the pharmaceutical industry has changed.

Sixty-six years ago, people celebrated the polio vaccine by embracing in the streets. Our vaccine story is both more extraordinary and more complicated.

Vaccination is of critical importance right now. History shows us that our problems are nothing new.

'The Man Who Lived Underground,' newly expanded from a story into a novel by the Library of America, may revise the seminal Black author's reputation.

The famed abolitionist’s father, Ben Ross, sheltered her and family on the Eastern Shore in the 1840s.

A new history of the Cuban missile crisis emphasizes how close the world came to destruction—and how severe a threat the weapons still pose.

After the Soviet Union sent the first human safely into orbit, the U.S. government doubled down on its effort to win the race to the moon.

How the disaster energized the nascent environmental movement and led to a slew of legislative changes.

In the heat of the Cold War, Joe McCarthy’s anti-communist crusade became a media sensation.

In the Cold War, North Korean Communists invaded South Korea. President Truman’s decision to intervene had consequences that shape the world today.

The terms meaning has shifted throughout Christianity’s long history, making it difficult to define.

Confronting a long tradition of projecting fantasies onto the South Bronx.

The Supreme Court has refused to force White Americans to confront history.