Excerpts

Instead of boosting the American Dream, policies encouraging homeownership exacerbate inequality.

A photographer whose work resembles that of a realist novelist, we observe a cast of characters as they change over time.

During Reconstruction, true citizenship finally seemed in reach for black Americans. Then their dreams were dismantled.

Greg Grandin’s new book charts the past and present of American expansionism and its high human costs.

In the first episode of ‘Voices of the Movement,’ King's associates recount their memories of April 4, 1968.

A new book tells the history of America through its workplace struggles.

After months of political maneuvering, intrigue, backroom bargaining, and furious oratory, the fate of FDR's plan was clear.

A history of trucking in America, told through the music that has kept truckers company on the lonely road.

Awakening from illness, the newly risen patient announced that Jemima had died and that her body had been requisitioned by God for the salvation of humankind.

A lot has been written about the notorious concert, but so much of the language around it has been passive and exonerating.

What we miss when we tell the story of women's rights activism as a strictly national tale.

How mathematics has been shaped by wars, politics, dynasties, and nationalism.

Its meaning can change over time, and over the course of a life.

On why he became a public thinker, the relationship between race and class, and his work in light of new histories of capitalism.

A closer look at the geopolitics of weapons sales through the Cold War, and beyond.

An incredibly preserved set of tracks tell the story of an ancient hunt.

For the first time, we are living in a truly post-cold-war political environment in the United States.

The author of 'High-Risers' revisits 'Candyman,' in which public housing is the greatest horror of all.

In 1907, a patent application for the pigeon camera was submitted.

The film’s hero left a legacy of racist violence in Texas.

How Harold Washington became Chicago’s first black mayor.

Boston and Providence meet the famous Siamese twins, Chang and Eng Bunker.

An early nineteenth-century feminist fights back against a narrow view of woman’s place in society.

What haunted America was not the misty specter of revolution but the solidifying specter of reactionary backlash.

Although he 'spoke' German, the vaudevillian canine captured the heart of the nation.

Benjamin Franklin introduced the magical picture, an experiment that played on the king's beloved image and his deadly force.

The history of the black con artist has been forgotten.

The answer was hidden in the shadows.

Rodriguez has captured celebrities in repose and farmworkers on strike.

Hannah Duston was used as a national symbol of innocence, valor, and patriotism to justify westward expansion.

The story of the Bintel Brief, an early twentieth-century advice column for Jewish immigrants.

For millennia, humans have followed specific patterns passed down by their forbears without always knowing why.

Redlining: the racist housing policy from the Jim Crow era that still affects us today.

The era of audience exploitation began in earnest thanks in large part to the experiments of Dr. Frank Stanton in the 1930s.

American niceness is the absolute worst thing to ever happen in human history.

More than 150 years ago, Frederick Law Olmsted changed how Americans think of public space.

The lesser-known beginning of the desegregation of public transportation.

The former Bush mouthpiece had more to do personally with the Iraq WMD catastrophe than he wants us to believe.

How experts and their facts created immigration restriction.

A missionary's account of the atrocities perpetrated against Cherokees shows that the Trail of Tears is no laughing matter.

Suicide during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

A primary source set and teaching guide created by educators.

Military necessity drove political support for a women’s draft.

In 1867, the Fenian Brotherhood was caught running guns to Ireland, precipitating a diplomatic crisis.

Business schools fetishize innovation, but their heroes succeeded due to manipulation of corporate law, not personal brilliance.

His reputation was savaged because he had the temerity to question the 'Good War' narrative.

While a far cry from full emancipation, it was an important step towards the abolition of slavery.

Lies about history long protected lynching.

Far from being a utilitarian afterthought, an astonishing number of design choices go into pagination.

Most of the arguments for preserving our insane system are morally odious, unsubstantiated, and/or factually incorrect.