Excerpts

Talk about caudillos is always, in reality, a discussion of their followers.

How plastic bags came to rule our lives, and why we can’t quit them.

Why so many commentators share an overly grim view of America’s fate.

The Lincoln Memorial, the NY Public Library lions, and the senate pediment of the US Capitol Building are among their creations.

The congressman and former slave claimed whites had killed 53,000 African-Americans. Few took him seriously—until now.

Embracing the swamp won't sink Trump immediately. But it will sink him eventually.

Why Washington needs more honest graft.

In an effort to open Congress, they institutionalized a confrontational style that permeates contemporary politics today.

The "Gangland Map" features drunken fish and goofy jokes alongside descriptions of brutal murders.

The budding mogul had a soft spot (but a short memory) for wiseguys.

The Obama library lands on Chicago.

A 1974 review of Robert Caro's "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York."

Protesters toppled the 1913 statue Monday, making it the latest Civil War memorial to be removed by government or demonstrators.

By supporting repressive governments, the U.S. has fueled the violence that has caused tens of thousands of kids to flee north.

Mark Zuckerberg and his buddies built a corporate proto-culture that continues to influence the company today.

When most people hear the term rare books, they imagine an old boys’ club of dealers seeking out first editions, mostly by men.

The parallel with Nixon leads to this question: Will voters still hold a president accountable for abuse of power?

Our concept of national security is so broad it can encompass virtually anything.

Why assessing the state of the world is harder than it sounds.

How an engraving of a slave ship helped the abolition movement.

The soul singer was an architect of the civil-rights movement as much as a witness to it.

The mighty but divided soul of C.L. Franklin.

The revival and hidden treasure of Aretha Franklin.

Powell’s foresight might have prevented the 1930s dust bowl and perhaps, today’s water scarcities.

Even America's founding document isn't immune to the powers of polarization.

The struggle at universities was never a simple conflict of generations.

They claim Earhart made several attempts to reach civilization in her final days — and her messages got through.

In the late 19th century, more women were becoming librarians. Experts predicted they would suffer ill health and breakdowns.

The oldest object on view shows on brown paperboard one of the earliest known images of a slave in the U.S.

In 1968, Time Magazine searched for the elusive definition of "soul."

No one else sang as well as her, and no other singer changed popular music as much as her.

The makers of the documentary “The King” turn to Elvis Presley to understand something about the state of the country.

From domestic concentration camps to the war on terror.

Sweet, filthy, and forgiving, it’s a corrective to the authoritative, we-know-better tone of most historical nonfiction.

How Hollywood tried to fight fascism and ended up blacklisting suspected Communists.

“Very fine people”—fathers and husbands, as well as mothers and daughters—have always been central to the work of white supremacy.

Guaranteeing citizen status simply for being born here is a deliberate misreading of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Russian electoral interference has renewed the temptation for American leaders to do the same.

Whether they delight or disappoint, old books provide touchstones for tracking personal growth.

Rebels in the post-Civil War South perfected the art of excluding voters, but it was yankees in the North who developed the script.

Convinced of rampant bias on the evening news, Paul Simpson founded the Vanderbilt Television News Archive.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's best work was done in isolation, a long way from Soviet Russia.

Economic rationales for schooling are eroding democracy.

A somewhat neglected vinyl-sided house is now at the center of a literary legacy battle.

Since the 1960s, the reference book has cataloged how people actually use language, not how they should. That might be changing.

Instead of trying to eliminate hunger, we continue to talk about personal responsibility.

Five historians weigh in on a new book about the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

Getting to know the New York City street mayors of the turn of the century.

How does Hammacher Schlemmer, famous for such eccentric products as the Navigable Water Park, continue to survive in the age of Amazon?

A pardon request for Aaron Dwight Stevens argues that slavery-related crimes are null.