Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
New on Bunk

Why We’ll Never Stop Arguing About Hamilton

Hamilton is an impossibly slippery text. The arguments over the show are part of what make it great.

How Is a Disaster Made?

Studying Hurricane Katrina as a discrete event is studying a fiction.

The Empire of All Maladies

Indigenous scholars have long contested the “virgin-soil epidemics” thesis. Today, it is clear that the disease thesis simply doesn’t hold up.
Crowd of protestors, mostly men, outside of a building

A Summer of Protest, Unemployment and Presidential Politics – Welcome to 1932

The parallels between the summer of '32 and what is happening now are striking.

Panel Mania

An excerpt from a new graphic biography of Jack Kirby, the "King of Comics."
Seattle police dressed in riot gear, standing in front of graffiti that reads "abolish the cops."

Police Reform Hasn't Stopped the Killings Before. It Won't Now Either.

Police reform is a time-honored counter-insurgency measure to quell rebellion.
People raising their fists and gathered around the Robert E. Lee Memorial in Richmond, Virginia

Europe in 1989, America in 2020, and the Death of the Lost Cause

A whole vision of history seems to be leaving the stage.
Robert Smalls

What Woodrow Wilson Did to Robert Smalls

We all know, in the abstract, that Wilson was a white supremacist. But here’s how he wielded his racism against one accomplished Black American.
A drawing of the National Emancipation Monument.

The Statue That Never Was

How a monument that championed black sacrifice in the name of emancipation was forgotten.
Drawing of four red fists intersecting the U.S. Capitol building

The Rebirth of Red Power

The tribal sovereignty movement from the late 1960s never really ended. To find the future of the Native left, look to the past.
Lin Manuel Miranda and fellow actor dressed in colonial era clothing

How to Love Problematic Pop Culture

Revisiting the contradictions in "Hamilton" – and in the pushback to criticisms of the beloved musical.
Portrait of Alexander Hamilton

The Hamilton Cult

Has the celebrated musical eclipsed the man himself?
Illustration of a nineteenth century prison ship offshore.

The Gay Marriages of a Nineteenth-Century Prison Ship

What seemed to enrage a former inmate most was the mutual consent of the men he lived with.

The Surprising Cross-Racial Saga of Modern Wealth Inequality

Why the “racial wealth gap” fails to explain economic inequality in black and white America.
A white hand holding white flowers.

100 Years of Edith Wharton's "The Age of Innocence"

Where does Edith Wharton's idea of innocence fall into our own world?

Stories in the Shine

"Moonshine" is now a big thing in the liquor biz. But it takes a visit to West Virginia to get a sense of the complex stories in every barrel.
Roosevelt statue

Why It's Right That the Theodore Roosevelt Statue Comes Down

Like the museum behind it, the monument was designed in large part to train white people in a fundamentally racist way of seeing.
Two statues next to each other

Confederates in the Capitol

The National Statuary Collection announced the unification of the former slave economy’s emotional heartland with the heart of national government.
partner

The Mainstreaming of Christian Zionism Could Warp Foreign Policy

How the history of dispensationalism shapes U.S. foreign policy today.
An image of Columbus, Ohio's statue of Christopher Columbus.

The Vanishing Monuments of Columbus, Ohio

Last week, the mayor announced that the city’s most prominent statue of Christopher Columbus would be removed “as soon as possible.”

The Ancestry Project

Sometimes I learned more Black history in a week at home than I did in a lifetime of Februarys at school.

A Different Kind of Expert

An 1813 correspondence demonstrates that medical expertise in early America was not limited to men or physicians.
A man walking by graffiti on a white wall that reads "Why do we have to keep telling you black lives matter?"

What the Protesters Tagging Historic Sites Get Right About the Past

Places of memory up and down the East Coast also witnessed acts of resistance and oppression.

The Confederates Loved America, and They’re Still Defining What Patriotism Means

The ideology of the men who celebrated the United States while fighting for its dissolution is still very much alive.
Lithograph of a Black man appealing to liberty and justice.

Dreams of a Revolution Deferred

How African-Americans in Early America celebrated the Declaration of Independence's ideals, even as basic freedoms were denied to them.
A group of South Korean refugees during the Korean War.

The Korean War Atrocities No One Wants to Talk About

For decades they covered up the U.S. massacre of civilians at No Gun Ri and elsewhere. This is why we never learn our lessons.
An artist's rendition of a ghost.

The Indebted Dead

Tracing the history of the Grateful Dead folktale and the evolving obligations of being alive.

Asian Americans Are Still Caught in the Trap of the ‘Model Minority’ Stereotype

Generations of Asian Americans have struggled to prove an Americanness that should not need to be proven.
partner

Liberal Reform Threatens to Expand the Police Power – Just as it Did in the Past

How calls for “real reforms” have resulted in measures that further shield police from real accountability.

Was El Monte Really Founded by White Pioneers?

A new book explores the history of the people who have been written out of the L.A. suburb's longtime origin story.
An image of Bob Dylan performing with a spotlight on him.

Tangled Up in Bob Stories: A Dylan Reading List

The author reflects on his own journey with Dylan, and shares some of his favorite pieces of Dylanology.

Confederate Battle Flag Comes Down in Mississippi; ‘Medgar’s Wings Must Be Clapping.’

Myrlie Evers began to weep when she heard the Mississippi Legislature vote to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag.

Makers of Living, Breathing History: The Material Culture of Homemade Facemasks

Masks have a history associated with disease, status, gender norms, and more.
NYPD officers in front of an American flag.

There’s Truth in Numbers in Policing – Until There Isn’t

To hold the police accountable for misconduct, data related to police violence must not only become more accessible, it must also become more reliable.

Our First Authoritarian Crackdown

A new book persuasively argues that the Federalists’ attempt to squash opposition and the free flow of ideas was even more nefarious than we thought.

The Power of Empty Pedestals

After Governor Northam announced its removal, two Richmond historians reflect on the legacy of the Lee Monument.
Men with guns in street
partner

How Tear Gas Became a Staple of American Law Enforcement

In 1932, the “Bonus Army” of jobless veterans staged a protest in Washington, DC. The government dispersed them with tear gas.
Freedmen's Memorial

Yes, the Freedmen’s Memorial Uses Racist Imagery. But Don’t Tear It Down.

Keep in mind what it meant to the people who created it.
Man dressed as a bleach bottle superhero is interviewed by reporters.

Bleachman Says, "Clean It With Bleach!"

Education campaigns for HIV/AIDS hold lessons for COVID-19.
Demonstrators against police brutality.
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The Explicit Anthem of Anti-Racist Protest

Rap group N.W.A. understood vulgarity and controversy were necessary to draw attention to police brutality.

America’s Long War on Children and Families

Trump’s family separation policy belongs to a much longer history of U.S. government forces taking children from families that don't match the American ideal.

The History That James Baldwin Wanted America to See

For Baldwin, the past had always been bent in service of a lie. Could a true story be told?

The Confederacy Was an Antidemocratic, Centralized State

The actual Confederate States of America was a repressive state devoted to white supremacy.
Black Lives Matter march.

Civil Rights Has Always Been a Global Movement

How allies abroad help the fight against racism at home.

An Enemy Until You Need a Friend

The role of "big government" in American history.

Why This Mexican Village Celebrates Juneteenth

Descendants of slaves who escaped across the southern border observe Texas’s emancipation holiday with their own unique traditions.

How USDA Distorted Data to Conceal Decades of Discrimination Against Black Farmers

An investigation found that USDA promoted misleading historical data which ultimately cost black farmers land, money, and agency.

The Living History of Juneteenth, Our Next National Holiday

A celebration of emancipation in Texas is taking hold in the minds of Americans everywhere.

Growing Up with Juneteenth

How a Texan holiday became a national tradition.

Why the Confederate Flag Flew During World War II

As white, southern troops raised the battle flag, they showed that they were fighting for change abroad—but the status quo at home.
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