Excerpts

A century ago, the commonwealth's leaders weren't circumspect about their motives.

Immigration from Mexico is actually decreasing.

Tim Berners-Lee has seen his creation debased by everything from fake news to mass surveillance. But he’s got a plan to fix it.

Today's debate over sanctuary cities embodies a much longer debate in America over federalism.

Whatever the Trump administration does with Environmental Protection Agency, its urban legacy is clear.

When residents of the U.S. came to see Latin Americans as partners in a shared revolutionary experiment.

The left is turning its back on the Revolution. Here's why that's a mistake.

What Dred Scott teaches us about thwarting bad law.

A new book asks: Can the surplus of capitalist exploitation be used to aid those on whose backs this surplus is generated?

Before the Civil War, many Southern leaders hoped to expand slavery even beyond the nation's borders.

George Washington gave orders to destroy towns and take prisoners in Sullivan’s Campaign, but her story lives on.

The story of the Bald Knobbers is a terrifying parable about what happens when government fails and violence reigns.

Should white artists be allowed to depict black suffering?

A conservative pundit questioned the prevalence of Dixiecrats switching to the GOP. Historian Kevin Kruse accepted the challenge.

For people of color watching over their shoulder, the fear of police interference harkens back to a historical moment with a much-too-benign label.

Review of The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution, by Michael J. Klarman.

In a new book, a historian explores the American fascination with conversion, and its costs. 

Philadelphia native Gene Demby was 4 years old when city police dropped a bomb on a house of black activists in his hometown.

Wild talk, elite confusion, working-class cheers — Donald Trump’s divisive presidential campaign comes straight from the master’s playbook.

America put drastically more people in prison over the past few decades than at any time in the nation's history.

The story of a spiritual visionary who in 1884, set out to create a colony of orphans in the New Mexico desert.

How the US military figured out how to make self-stable cheese ... and helped invent Cheetos to boot.

After the Civil War, African Americans in the South transformed Independence Day into a celebration of their newly won freedom.

The 1776 Declaration was only the first. What we learn from the long history of splinter constitutions, manifestos, and secessions that followed.

The Founding Fathers were more interested in limiting democracy than securing and expanding it.

Democrats don’t think America lives up to liberal democratic ideals. Republicans don’t think Americans need to.

A primary source set and teaching guide created by educators.

The leaders of the Revolutionary War -- and their vision for the nation -- were far from revolutionary.

The story of the Armed Services Editions.

A Dallas restaurant owner blended tequila, ice and automation. America has been hungover ever since.

Simeon Wade describes visiting Death Valley with Michel Foucault in 1975.

Native Americans' fights for environmental protection should not be seen as battles against progress.

The end of an era.

The two men owned slaves — but at vastly different moments in American history.

The city isn't rushing to put it back up.

Then the factory closed and the union crumbled.

But the Vermont senator’s political revolution depends on white America, too.

The Vermont senator isn’t religious, but a victory in Iowa or New Hampshire would be the first ever for a Jewish presidential candidate.

Where was the president in the eight hours after the Sept. 11 attacks? The strange, harrowing journey of Air Force One, as told by people on board.

What she doesn't get about race and the Civil War.

We need literature that wrestles with the evils of slavery while confronting its complexity – especially when it’s written for children

A visualization of who came from where, when.

How the entertainer was blacklisted for standing up to the President.

How eugenics shaped America's immigration policy.

President Trump's grandfather made the choice to leave his German family for the U.S. all the way back in 1885.

A strange and bittersweet ballad of kidnapping, stolen identity and unlikely stardom.

America has always discriminated in the name of national security. It’s just gotten better at pretending it’s not.

It used to be that nobody would admit to opposing a nominee for ideological reasons. Should we be happy that illusion is over?

A personal investigation of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864.

Puerto Ricans were forced to become “Porto Ricans” – adopting Anglo customs while subsidizing American profits.