Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
New on Bunk

Hyman Minsky’s Views on the “Welfare Mess”

The intellectual father of the job guarantee movement saw it as a replacement for the social safety net.

Contraband Flesh

A reflection on Zora Neale Hurston’s newly-published book, "Barracoon."

The Death and Life of the Instant-Print Camera

The iPhone era has ushered in a new fondness for analog photography that has turned clunky cameras into necessary accessories.

The Long, Tortured History of the Job Guarantee

How liberals, over decades, worked to undermine a proposal that has long enjoyed public support.

The Rise of the Victims’-Rights Movement

How a conservative agenda and a feminist cause came together to transform criminal justice.

FDR's War Against the Press

Franklin Roosevelt had his own Breitbart, and radio was his Twitter.

The Many Lives of Pauli Murray

She was an architect of the civil-rights struggle-and the women's movement. Why haven't you heard of her?

Did Abraham Lincoln’s Bromance Alter the Course of American History?

Joshua Speed found his BFF in Abraham Lincoln.

“We Lost Our Appetite for Food”: Why Eighteenth-Century Hangriness Might Not Be a Thing

Hunger hasn't always always caused anger and violence - in American history, hunger was more likely to be suppressed.

America’s Most Political Food

The founder of a popular South Carolina barbecue restaurant was a white supremacist.
Reverend William J. Barber II leads a Moral Mondays rally in New York, 2015.
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Shaping a New Poor People’s Campaign

Rather than seeking a national solution, activists are taking to states across America to combat the deep roots of poverty.

Birthright

What's next for Planned Parenthood?

Born a Slave, Emma Ray Was The Saint of Seattle’s Slums

Emma Ray was a leader in battles against poverty, and for temperance.

Dermokratiya, USA

With rampant talk of Russian interference, it's worth recounting Washington's role in undermining Russia's 1996 election.
Demonstrators marching with a sign advocating a free Palestine and an end to U.S. aid to Israel.
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Why Democrats are Abandoning Israel

Democrats like Lyndon Johnson staunchly supported Israel. Now the party is leaving that legacy behind.

Human Rights and Neoliberalism

How is it that the era of neoliberalism coincides almost perfectly with the triumphant rise of a discourse of human rights?
Settlement of Israelis in the West Bank.

How American Jews Became Israeli Settlers

Historian Sara Yael Hirschhorn explains what has driven some American Jews to the most contentious real estate on earth.

Why Women Couldn’t Wear Pants on the Senate Floor Until 1993

Two political pioneers staged a "Pantsuit Revolution."

Little Government in the Big Woods

Melissa Gilbert's lost bid for Congress and the forgotten political history of 'Little House on the Prairie.'
Frederick Park and Ernest Boulton, two non gender-conforming people in London, 1869.

What is Trans History?

From activist and academic roots, a field takes shape.

The Old West’s Muslim Tamale King

How a South Asian immigrant became a Wyoming fast-food legend and received American citizenship - twice.

Why the Name of the President’s Fitness Council Matters

And why would President Trump bother to change the name?
Library card noting a book checked out to Dr. Oppenheimer.

Atomic Bonds

What was J. Robert Oppenheimer doing with a book about science in early America?
Amazon packages on a conveyor belt.
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It's Time For Cities To Stop Giving Tax Breaks To Corporations

To fight back against corporate power, cities have to cooperate, not compete.

The Historical Roots of Blues Music

The blues is not "slave music," but the music of freed African Americans.

Iran Hawks Are the New Iraq Hawks

Many of the assumptions that guided America’s march to conflict in 2003 still dominate American foreign policy today.   

For Democracy, At Home and Abroad

On VE Day, we remember black Americans' Double V campaign: victory in Europe against fascism, victory at home against racism.
Colin Powell holding a vial of anthrax.

How Torture-Produced Intelligence Deceived Us Into Iraq

A first-hand account of how intel gleaned from 'enhanced interrogation' was used to make the case for the 2003 invasion.
Demonstrators hold a painting of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump outside a Trump rally in Phoenix, Arizona, August 22, 2017.

American Democracy Has Faced Worse Threats Than Donald Trump

The golden age of American politics was illiberal, undemocratic, and bloody.

The Presidency Is Too Big to Succeed

The problems of presidential gigantism can’t be solved by finding the right giant—the office is dying from its own growth.

How The Hutchinson Family Singers Achieved Pop Stardom with an Anti-Slavery Anthem

"Get Off the Track!" borrowed the melody of a racist hit song and helped give a public voice to the abolitionist movement.

Hitler's American Dream

The dictator modeled his racial campaign after another conquest of land and people-America's Manifest Destiny.

Happy Captive Nations Week!

We're supposed to celebrate one of the weirdest artifacts of the Cold War.

The Unlikely Paths of Grant and Lee

The two men met at Appomattox. The loser would become a role model, the victor an embarrassment.
Sinking of the Lusitania

Life Aboard the Lusitania

Reliving the Sinking of the Lusitania Through the Eyes of a Survivor-My Great-Grandmother

This Haunting Animation Maps the Journeys of 15,790 Slave Ships in Two Minutes

315 years. 20,528 voyages. Millions of lives.

Dramatic Courtroom Drawings From Decades of American Trials

The Library of Congress' new exhibition is "Drawing Justice: The Art of Courtroom illustration."

Executive Action

Andrew Jackson was the first president to carry a big stick: he beat a would-be assassin with a cane.
LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Massive Liberal Failure on Race, Part II

Affirmative action doesn't work. It never did. It's time for a new solution.

The Massive Liberal Failure on Race, Part III

The Civil Rights movement ignored one very important, very difficult question. It’s time to answer it.

The Massive Liberal Failure on Race, Part I

How the liberal embrace of busing hurt the cause of integration.

What Do You Do After Surviving Your Own Lynching?

On August 7, 1930, three black teenagers were lynched in Marion, Indiana. James Cameron was one of them.

Kanye’s Brand of “Freethinking” Has a Long, Awful History

His condemnation of enslaved people’s failure to rebel is drawn from a dangerous ideology that’s older than the United States.
William Sloan Coffin Jr. and his daughter.

Anti-War Protests 50 Years Ago Helped Mold The Modern Christian Right

Vietnam created a rupture in the Protestant church.
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The Digital Age Killed Cursive, But It Can't Kill the Signature

Signatures are a mark of authenticity.

These Should Be The End Times For American Patriotism

Exceptionalism has always been core to American patriotism, and American exceptionalism is no longer tenable.

The Silent Type

David Blight reviews Ron Chernow's biography of Ulysses S. Grant.

Prison Cells and Pretty Walls

Gender coding and American schools.
United States Colored Troops.

African American Civil War Soldiers

Why an historian is compiling a digital database of the military records of 200,000+ black Union soldiers.

K Troop

The untold story of the eradication of the original Ku Klux Klan.
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