Excerpts

Why we must ask not only what stories our landscapes of commemoration tell, but also what stories they leave out.

How do we humanely bury the dead after a disaster?

America's unconditional love of the Civil War has blinded us to its true meaning.

Language variation is just as diverse within Appalachia as it is outside of the region.

With the rise of spit-in-a-cup genetic testing, white nationalists are turning to science to "prove" their racial identity.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's solo dissent from an affirmative action case was inspired by a footnote.

Stripping Virginia of its Lee tributes is far harder than it is in other places.

The case he didn’t expect to lose. And why it mattered that he did.

The genius move that turned potato scraps into a frozen-food empire

After decades of modern fire prevention, many forests have become dangerous tinder-boxes.

Jeff Sessions used it to justify his policy of family separation, but he’s not the first to invoke the biblical passage.

Since the 1994 Crime Bill signed into law by Bill Clinton, refugees have been deported in droves. And Southeast Asians are being targeted.

Before Stowe's famous novel, a formerly enslaved African-American living in Canada wrote a memoir detailing his experience.

The ERA has been dead for 36 years, but now women may have the tools to overcome opposition.

Historically black colleges and universities hosted all but six ATA tournaments from 1927 to 1968.

Politicians from both sides of the aisle have tried to stake a claim to the power of the Kennedy legend. What is it about Camelot?

The second part in a series exploring little-seen contributions to cartography.

What happened in Virginia was not the culminating battle of this conflict. It’s likely a tragic preface to more of the same.

The weekend's demonstrators were the latest in a long line of American racists to ally themselves with an imagined Middle Ages.

Threatening the newly-freed Southern slaves.

And why you might never have heard of Ira Aldridge.

When did the practice of weighing newborns begin? And why?

How Joseph McCarthy henchman Roy Cohn became Donald Trump’s mentor.

A stuffed history of the closet, where the “past becomes space.”

They force us to remember the worst parts of our history.

Instead of playing on emotions, we need to destigmatize addiction.

Jefferson had a complicated relationship with white supremacy.

The baseball great warned of lasting repercussion for black voters during Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign.

There's a reason you won't find many monuments in the South to one of Robert E. Lee's most able deputies.

A new book explores the nation’s now-faded preoccupation with the 'epidemic' of hunched bodies.

Angry that ICE is ripping families apart? Don’t just blame Trump. Blame Clinton, Bush and Obama, too.

On the white privilege of being able to ignore the racial context of Johnson's Jim Crow-era conviction.

America today has a lot in common with that bygone era of monopolies and gross inequality. But will the country respond similarly?

While white Americana singers have infused more soul into their sound, black artists still feel restricted by limited expectations.

Mental health care has never been adequate in the U.S.

Commitment to liberalism once distinguished the U.S. Now, it’s the disdain of elites for their fellow citizens that sets the nation apart.

Edits that colonists made to prayer books during the American Revolution embodied the shift to independence.

In a city steeped in history, very few residents understand the powerful legacy of opium money.

For decades, the military made sure soldiers had access to the treat—including spending $1 million on a floating ice-cream factory.

If too much partisanship is the problem, more bureaucracy might be the answer.

The not-so-sweet history.

They believed public schools were the foundation of a virtuous republic.

The myth of Ike’s nuclear recklessness could lead us into war.

Nuclear disarmament talks with the North Koreans go back at least a quarter-century. How did we get to Singapore?

New exhibits put slavery at the center of Monticello's story, and make it clear that Jefferson was the father of Hemings' children.

With Amazon on the rise and a business tycoon in the White House, can a new generation of Democrats return the party to its trust-busting roots?

A short history puts contemporary anti-monopoly movements in context.

The bloody history of attacks on American journalists.

Here's what we've learned about mass protests since the 1917 Silent Parade.

How Alice Collins Plebuch’s foray into “recreational genomics” upended a family tree.