Excerpts

How statistics were used in the urban North to condemn Blackness as inherently criminal.

Having more than one wife was an established part of life for some Native peoples before Europeans tried to end the practice.

The CIA committed many crimes in the early days of post-independence Africa. But is it fair to call their interference “recolonization”?

Today, some Virginians would ‘protect’ children from the kind of valuable education that I had when my dad was governor.

Lazy assumptions about young and old cloud our politics.

Deemed “the greatest landscape painter in the West,” he achieved rare fame in his day.

American policy continues to create problems for Central American refugees.

This collection of colorized portraits transforms ex-slave narratives into freedom narratives in order to better remember the individuals who survived slavery.

A Story Map that highlights events, sites, and people important to Native American history.

A conversation with two journalists who were among the first to uncover evidence of a deadly rampage.

Joshua Cohen imagines how Philip Roth would review his own biographer.

Historian Melanie Newport turns to eBay.

Washington was a savvy packager of his own personal virtues. He knew that if you don’t engage in a bit of self-aggrandizement, you lose.

Civil War pension records have a lot to tell us about the lives of U.S. Colored Troops.

Board games invite discussions of counterfactuality and contingency, resisting the teleology and determinism that are so common to looking backward in time.

But the media is treating him differently than it treated Matthew Joseph Rodermund more than a century ago.

At the height of the Reconstruction, the pressing issue of the election was Black male suffrage.

The writer had a deep bond with his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. But he also had a profound connection with Emerson’s wife.

How Transcendentalism, the American philosophy that championed the individual, caught on in tight-knit Concord, Massachusetts.

How the commission that led to the creation of the U.S.’s public television and radio systems can serve as a model for countering disinformation today.

Claudette Colvin is a Civil Rights hero you've probably never heard of. In 1955, she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat, months before Rosa Parks.

The front lines of a terrible epidemic, through the eyes of a young doctor profoundly touched by tragedy.

Once, abolitionists had to imagine a world without slavery. Can we similarly envision a world where migrants are offered justice?

The majority-female platoon from North Vietnam that fought against U.S. forces in the Vietnam War.

During the 1840s, landlords tried to drive out tenants in default. The movement that rose to challenge evictions can be a model for today’s housing activists.

How the federal government enlisted ordinary citizens to spy on each other for the war effort.

Fake news has been central to the Lost Cause narrative since its inception, employed to justify and amplify the symbolism of Confederate monuments and flags.

The United States has a terrible habit of letting white supremacy get away with repeated attempts to murder American democracy.

Contractors are increasingly doing dangerous work helping our troops — without any of the recognition.

After Japan's surrender, U.S. troops rebelled against a plan to keep them overseas, staging dramatic protests from the Philippines to Guam.

The rise of the first Black woman on the Louisiana Supreme Court was characterized by one battle after another with the Deep South’s white power structure.

Laws against teaching critical race theory might backfire on Republicans.

The time when Harvard made an atheist their head chaplain.

Experiencing history in Assassin’s Creed.

Like the 1619 Project, two new books on the Constitution reflect a vigorous debate about what has changed in the American past—and what hasn’t.

'Isn’t this supposed to be the museum of the motion picture industry?' a historian asks. 'They forgot about the industry part.'

John Berryman's Dream Songs made explicit the racialization of American poetry's turn—and the whiteness of lyric tradition.

The manner in which the debate unfolded is a reminder of the ways slavery affected everything it touched.

This overlooked corner of the press provided news by and for people incarcerated. A newly available archive shows it worked hard to reach outside audiences too.

How a series of emergencies resulted in the school lunch programs we have today.

Georgia enacted the Citizen's Arrest Law in an attempt to maintain control of enslaved people.

Are the truths in the Declaration of Independence really self-evident?

A concept that took hold in the ’70s has haunted everything from seat belts to masks—and experts won't let it die.

American innocence, the possession of history, and January 6, 2021.

The New Yorker critic's new book is a sequel of sorts to "The Metaphysical Club."

For decades, U.S. cities have been closing or neglecting public restrooms, leaving millions with no place to go.

The U.S. managed to pay for a child care program during the most expensive war ever. What happened?

Each time political minorities advocate for and achieve greater equality, conservatives rebel, trying to force a reinstatement of the status quo.

How a decades-long movement helped the far-right fringe gain control of the GOP.

My ancestors were enslaved—but their freedom came at a price for others.