Excerpts

ARPANET and the development of the internet, 50 years later.

A city on the edge.

On the danger that the US government's habit of redacting official documents poses to democracy.

Kap wasn't the first, and he won't be the last.

On the 1909 National American Woman Suffrage Association Convention in Seattle.

We don't think much about where our waste goes, but the history of what we do with poop is also the history of how we grow food.

The roots musician is inspired by the evolving legacy of the black string band.

Power and ambition in women are often hidden, buried, disguised, crushed, mocked, diminished, punished, or excoriated.

Wire service reporting from the capital provided much of the nation with coverage of federal government and politics.

A neglected theory that helps explain today’s problems.

A review of Kim Phillips-Fein’s "Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics."

A consideration of four recent books that attempt to contend with the rise of Trumpism at home and abroad.

The surprising story of the vigilantes who took it upon themselves to catch bank robbers in the 1920s and 30s.

Single-use plastic is clogging oceans and landfills. The plastic industry has waged a decades-long campaign to keep it selling it.

A century ago, the invocation of science was key to making Americans believe that newcomers were inferior.

The justice used my book to tie abortion to eugenics. But his rendition of the history is incorrect.

A true story of the defining phrase of the Lone Star state.

For decades, book publishers regularly rejected authors on the basis of their race and religion. Their voices deserve to be heard.

From 1966-1969, the underground newspaper 'San Francisco Oracle' became exceedingly popular among counterculture communities.

Once a cask that held crude, the oil barrel is now mostly an economic concept.

Rockets and turbofans have promised to realize dreams of transportation progress—for decades.

Amid continued standoffs between tribes and states over treaties signed before statehood was achieved, the ruling is a victory for Native rights.

The upper classes once imposed the fashion staple on their servants—then they stole it back from them.

Without historical records, we lose key insights into how law enforcement works — and how it fails.

The pessimism of some historians does an injustice to marginalized people of the past and can produce cynicism in students.

How a black psychiatrist helped design a groundbreaking television show as a radical therapeutic tool for minority preschoolers.

A new book rescues the Poor People’s Campaign from its reputation as a desperate last cry of the civil rights movement.

Family dynasties are neither new nor newly influential in pop.

Was the impeachment of Andrew Johnson a matter of national principles? Or an affair of pragmatic politics?

A field secretary of SNCC discusses the importance of maintaining political power inside communities at the county level.

This 1958 interview is the earliest known radio recording to overtly discuss homosexuality.

Experience the Watergate impeachment hearings and television broadcasts as so many did in 1973.

The rise and fall of the defense contractor who bought off Navy brass with meals, liquor, women and bribes.

Discussions of admissions to élite colleges are built around the idea that somewhere around the next bend is the right way to do it.

Lady Liberty was inspired by the end of the Civil War and emancipation. The connection to immigration came later.

Odetta’s artistry was a weapon in the Civil Rights struggle, and was crucial to the era’s politics.

Examining histories of mass incarceration and views on teaching histories of the carceral state.

Judy Juanita on her novel 'Virgin Soul,' which incorporates her experiences as a Black Panther living in San Francisco.

Neo-Nazis aren't the only ones collecting Nazi memorabilia.

None of these iconic photographs would exist without the brave photographers documenting the civil rights movement.

Black barbershops are a symbol of community, and they provide a window into our nation's complicated racial dynamics.

"Why do you have black dolls?"

Victorian "Moustache Cups" ensure that one can drink while keeping their mustache dry.

An interactive set of maps and narratives of the forced migration of approximately 850,000 enslaved people from 1810-1860.

Popularized images of female hula dancers have deviated far from their origins and perpetuated stereotypes.

Suburban corporate campuses have isolated themselves by design from the communities their products were supposed to impact.

In 1966, the queens had finally had enough with years of discriminatory treatment by the San Francisco police.

How do you diagnose the problem of racism in America without understanding its actual history?

A Library of Congress exhibit on the context, passage, and significance of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

It's a struggle that's been waged for centuries.