Excerpts

How was the Fourth of July celebrated during the Revolutionary War?

Supreme Court decisions have practical consequences, which justices too often blithely ignore.

White nationalists have long used the holiday to advance their dreams of a white country.

Or everything that came before Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus walked down that “Old Town Road.”

And why we need another one.

Fifty years after Jazzercise was founded, it is still shaping how Americans work out—for better or for worse.

Some kind, some weird, some unbelievably harsh.

At what point does resistance become the only choice?

Networks of activists transformed Stonewall from an isolated event into a turning point in the struggle for gay power.

And why the Democrats can’t use it against him.

Fifty years after Stonewall, the gay-panic defense seems absurd. But, for decades, it had the power of law.

The New York Times should have done a better job fact-checking Appiah’s essay. Philosophy may be allegorical. History isn’t.

It was everywhere at the turn of the 20th century. It was also inedible.

Is Trump's power as president becoming just what the Founders feared?

Pointe du Hoc’s importance as a military objective has become the subject of heated debate as the invasion’s anniversary approaches.

Virginia engaged in “the most public, focused, and sustained discussion of slavery and emancipation that ever occurred."

The national survey offers more identity choices than ever—until those choices get scrubbed away.

Most communities barely had a police force and citizens shared responsibility for enforcing laws. Then the car changed everything.

The events of June 1969 have come to define both Cleveland and the river. Some Clevelanders have a different story.

Routine arrests were the linchpin of a social system intended to humiliate LGBTQ people.

To mark the culmination of Census 2010, we explore the fascinating story of how Americans have counted themselves.

Research finds that white people in regions that were heavily dependent on slavery are more likely to harbor unconscious racism.

Thanks to the new acquisition, scholars at the Athenaeum library are connecting the dots of the city’s history of abolitionists.

What the backlash to the emergency legislation reveals about the age-old pathologies of the right.

In the realism, the set pieces, the operatic music, Sergio Leone was pointing the way towards modern filmmaking.

The indigo dye that created the Royal Navy's signature uniform color was only possible because of imperialism and slavery.

The difference between the careers and reputations of the three famous authors is about gender as well as genius.

How William Faulkner and a small group of provocateurs challenged segregation in ways that resonate today.

Lead contamination in New Orleans and beyond.

Congress had the final say on the design for the slain president’s monument. The competition was intense.

The economics of childbirth under slavery.

From Bob Dylan to David Bowie to The Beatles, the legendary Beat writer’s influence reached beyond literature into music in surprising ways.

Without accounting for the often-invisible work of others in his research, Robert Caro's new memoir is not so much inspiration as an exercise in self-celebration.

When one system of economic oppression collapsed, new ones were created to fill the void.

In Washington’s Virginia, family was a crucial determinant of social and economic status, and freedom.

Buttigieg believes he probably won’t be the first gay president if he’s elected in 2020.

The longer a camp system stays open, the more likely it is that vital things will go wrong.

Some people called it "Welfare Capitalism." George F. Johnson called it "The Square Deal."

If the play holds up a mirror to our moment, it is by registering slavery in a peripheral glance only to look away.

Her grass-roots efforts shaped the conversation and presented a path forward.

As a Native person, I believe “This Land Is Your Land” falls flat.

Throughout the early 20th century, food corporations created advertisement campaigns directed at women.

The candidate’s years as an anti-busing crusader cannot be forgotten—or readily forgiven.

Why we still read Orwell’s book of prophecy.

Their 1964 collaboration, "Nothing Personal," brought together aspects of American life and culture through photographs and text.

America’s long history of predatory lending.

26 pirates were put to death in Rhode Island on July 19, 1723. Their flag, and everything it stood for, hung with them.

Freeing Thoreau from layers of caricature that have long distorted his legacy.

Law and protest in Durham, North Carolina.

In an exclusive excerpt from his new book, 'Calder: The Conquest of Time,' Jed Perl reveals a hidden side of the artist.