Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
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John Rawls

How John Rawls Became the Liberal Philosopher of a Conservative Age

With "A Theory Of Justice," Rawls became the most influential political philosopher of his time — just as the liberal agenda he supported was retreating.
James Beard cooking illustration

How James Beard Invented American Cooking

The gourmet’s real genius wasn’t in his recipes but in his packaging. He knew how to serve up the authenticity that his audiences craved.
A shot from behind of Rush Limbaugh giving a speech at a Make America Great Again rally.

The Right’s Reign on the Air Waves

How talk radio established the power of the modern Republican Party.
The Black Panthers and Young Patriots at a press conference.

The Panthers and the Patriots

The story of how a group of poor whites in Chicago united with the Black Panthers to fight racism and capitalism.
A painting of two people

Dispatches from 1918

Thinking about our future, we look back on the aftermath of a century-old pandemic.
Carole King

'It Shook Me to My Core': 50 Years of Carole King's Tapestry

James Taylor, Roberta Flack, Tori Amos, Joan Armatrading, Rufus Wainwright and more on the 70s masterpiece.
Artistic collage of black leaders surrounded by images associated with prohibition.

The Forgotten History of Black Prohibitionism

We often think of the temperance movement as driven by white evangelicals set out to discipline Black Americans and immigrants. That history is wrong.
A colorful graphic featuring Curt Flood with a key on his necklace.

Curt Flood Belongs in the Hall of Fame

His defiance changed baseball and helped assert Black people’s worth in American culture.

I Survived Prison During The AIDS Epidemic. Here’s What It Taught Me About Coronavirus

COVID-19 isn’t an automatic death sentence, but the fear, vilification and isolation are the same.
Mitch McConnell wearing a mask
partner

McConnell’s Task: Purging the Crackpots and Bigots

The impeachment exposed the need for Republican leaders to banish the extremists and bigots from their movement.
Ulysses S. Grant statue in front of the capitol
partner

Grant — Not Lincoln or Roosevelt — May Hold the Key to Biden’s Success

Biden needs to stare down White supremacy, which requires strenuous enforcement of the laws.
A clue and black clay figuring with a Sony Watchman attached as its "head."

Please, My Digital Archive. It’s Very Sick.

Our past on the internet is disappearing before we can make it history.
the contra military group

Reagan and the Iran-Contra Affair

Reagan's commitment to deregulation, aggressive military spending, and diminished oversight created a cocktail of corruption that was worse than Watergate.
Richard Mentor Johnson.

He Became the Nation’s Ninth Vice President. She Was His Enslaved Wife.

Her name was Julia Chinn.
A nurse standing by a patient's bed during the Spanish Flu.

Did We Forget to Memorialize Spanish Flu Because Women Were the Heroes?

Sure, it came on the heels of World War I, but it was way more deadly.

Lincoln and Marx

The transatlantic convergence of two revolutionaries.
Illustration of phrenologiy models

Phrenology Is Here to Stay

“Pseudoscience,” race, and American politics.
partner

How a Standoff with the Black Panthers Fueled the Rise of SWAT

SWAT teams were created in the 1960s to combat violent events. Since then, the specialized teams have morphed into something very different.
partner

We’re Catching More Diseases From Wild Animals, and It’s Our Fault.

Scientists explain how viruses, like Covid-19, spill over from animals to people, and what we must do to stop the next pandemic.
partner

Upheaval at the 1860 Democratic Convention: What Happened When a Party Split

Some issues are too fundamental for a party to withstand, and the consequences can last for a generation.
partner

A Trusted Pill Turned Deadly. How Tylenol Made a Comeback

How do some companies regain public trust after something goes seriously wrong, while others fail?
Female medics during the 1918 pandemic.

How the Devastating 1918 Flu Pandemic Helped Advance US Women's Rights

With many men 'missing' from the population in the aftermath of the 1918 flu, women stepped into public roles that hadn't previously been open to them.
Diorama of Benjamin Banneker surveying the area around the White House

Art of History: Preserving African American Dioramas

Conservators are restoring a series of dioramas created for the 1940 American Negro Exposition, bringing their magical artistry, and stories, back to life.
Protestors holding signs on a bridge

Fighting School Segregation Didn't Take Place Just in the South

In the 1950s, Harlem mother Mae Mallory fought a school system that she saw as 'just as Jim Crow' as the one she had attended in the South.
Artistic collage fire, cars trains, factories, and air pollution.

Endless Combustion

Three new books examine how the rise of coal, oil, and gas have permanently remade our world.
The ocean

Chemical Warfare’s Home Front

Since World War I we’ve been solving problems with dangerous chemicals that introduce new problems.
photograph of a woman from a carpeta

A New Photo Exhibit Looks at Decades of FBI Surveillance on American Citizens

A new book shares a cautionary tale of the American surveillance state.
The Black Panthers

Why a Shootout Between Black Panthers and Law Enforcement 50 Years Ago Matters Today

In 1971, armed officers went to a house occupied by Black Panther activists, marking a policing trajectory toward a more militarized response to Black activism.
A still from "Judas and the Black Messiah."

The Unsettling Message of ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’

The new crime thriller about a magnetic leader of the Black Panther Party is a sharp criticism of the FBI’s surveillance of social movements past and present.
A painted picture of someone receiving a vaccine

History Shows Americans Have Always Been Wary of Vaccines

Even so, many diseases have been tamed. Will Covid-19 be next?
Prince Hall portrait

A Forgotten Black Founding Father

Why I’ve made it my mission to teach others about Prince Hall.
A negative from a photo of Abraham Lincoln

How Historians Say Abraham Lincoln Is Quoted and Misquoted

As Presidents' Day approaches, historians look back at the most notable recent uses and misuses of "the Great Emancipator's" words.
GameStop store

What Would the Socialist Who Created the Hedge Fund Think of the GameStop Mess?

When Alfred Winslow Jones created the hedge fund in 1949, the key to its approach was short sales, a practice the GameStop mess returned to public infamy.
Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln's Great Depression

Abraham Lincoln fought clinical depression all his life. But what would today be treated as a "character issue" gave Lincoln the tools to save the nation.
Ramón Castilla

Emancipation in War: The United States and Peru

A comparative look at the U.S. and Peru's emancipation proclamations' nuances in declaring the freedom of enslaved peoples.
Couple kissing
partner

Love Me Did: A History of Courtship

Cuddle up with your sweetie for stories about three centuries of pre-marital intimacy, from Puritan "bundling" to the back-seat of the parents' Buick.
Freedmen's memorial.

Of, By & For the Freedmen

On the aesthetics and history of the Freedman’s Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Illustration of Lincoln consulting with military figures in a tent.

Did Lincoln Really Matter?

What the Civil War tells us about who has the power to shape history.
a artistic human face photo

Bring Back the Nervous Breakdown

It used to be okay to admit that the world had simply become too much.
A close-up of an African-American woman's face and hair

On Liberating the History of Black Hair

Emma Dabiri deconstructs colonial ideas of Blackness.
US Capitol

Is the US Capitol a 'Temple of Democracy'? Its Authoritarian Architecture Suggests Otherwise

The neoclassical building was inspired by European shrines to imperial power.
A depiction of the female reproduction system in an early sex ed film.

Slut-Shaming, Eugenics, and Donald Duck

The scandalous history of sex-ed movies.

The Invention of Monogamy

For most of its history, monogamy was a rule only applied to married women.
John C. Calhoun

American Heretic, American Burke

A review of Robert Elder's new biography of John C. Calhoun.
Portrait of Emily Dickinson next to a portrait of Susan Gilbert

Emily Dickinson’s Electric Love Letters to Susan Gilbert

“Come with me this morning to the church within our hearts, where the bells are always ringing, and the preacher whose name is Love — shall intercede for us!”
Roosevelt Middle School sign with a red X on it.

The Holier-Than-Thou Crusade in San Francisco

The city’s move to rename schools will provide invaluable ammunition to Fox News.

All the Presidents’ Librarians

Presidential libraries are too important for historians to ignore.
Go on Monopoly board

The Twisted History of Your Favorite Board Game

An interview with Mary Pilon about her new book, ‘The Monopolists,’ which uncovers the real story about how Monopoly became the game it is today.
Drawing of a lightbulb illuminating an inventor's laboratory.

The Real Nature of Thomas Edison’s Genius

The inventor did not look for problems in need of solutions; he looked for solutions in need of modification.
Artistic photo with american flags

Richard Hofstadter’s Discontents

Why did the historian come to fear the very movements he once would have celebrated?
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