Excerpts

James Baldwin’s testimony in images.

Birthright citizenship is distinctly American—but not in the way Trump thinks.

The Trump Administration's reasons for resettling Afrikaners echo early U.S. debates about Haiti's independence.

Fifty years on, "The Monkey Wrench Gang" remains a problematic text for environmental activists, who are inclined to endorse its violent tendencies.

Much of Mackinac Island was designated as a national park, but was too expensive for the government to maintain, so it was transferred to the State of Michigan.

How could two renowned, high-ranking men of the American Revolution have fallen into such dire straits that they feared the loss of all they worked for?

Calls to defund the Marxist left and similar mobilizations against rumors of a new red dawn are nothing new.

Jewish-led Palestine solidarity demonstrations are part of a long history of Jewish identity being bound up in leftist politics.

How the idea of “home” motivated Confederate soldiers, and strengthened their resolve to fight.

Why was Boston and Massachusetts the site of so much early Revolutionary activity?

The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Act made way for investigations of racially motivated killings. The federal agency enforcing it is in disarray.

The announcement comes just four days before the Army’s multimillion dollar parade in Washington.

The charged meaning of hair in 19th-century America.

On the renewed relevance of “Under Cover,” Arthur Derounian’s 1943 exposé of the United States’ Nazi underworld.

Harriet Tubman’s revolutionary Civil War raid and the power of preserving Black history in the face of political pushback.

Tax resistance has long opposed war and empire in North America, and could be a way to resist U.S. funding of violence in Gaza today.

Eight ways to understand the literary-political impact of William F. Buckley Jr.

As Elon Musk and Donald Trump engaged in a campaign of mutually-assured destruction, social media saw record new levels of schadenfreude.

Reflections on memory, dreams, and computer screensavers.

Why are avocados everywhere?

In the relationship between humans and raccoons, the black-masked mammals have played many roles.

With its signature two-toned design and illustrations, the mock newspaper encouraged polite passenger etiquette and promoted local attractions.

The White House's most terrifying ghost and the maid who saw it.

How Irving Thalberg helped turn M-G-M into the world’s most famous movie studio—and gave the film business a new sense of artistry and scale.

"Full Metal Jacket" and the crisis of masculinity.

An oral history of the tabloid race to cover the serial killer.

The genesis of the United Nations came from the nations united as Allies against the Axis powers, but who really pushed the institution into being?

How the Sons of Liberty became colonial power-brokers.

Since the 1960s, studies have shown that heavy-handed policing and militarized responses tend to make protests more volatile — not less.

A new book challenges the discursive ignorance about the condition.

On grifters, the Chicago World Fair, and Oz as symbol of a modern USA.

On the political theorist and the new media landscape.

The state of design in 1970.

To reduce Virginia’s use of the death penalty, Thomas Jefferson proposed using permanent disfigurement as a punishment for rape, polygamy, and sodomy.

Understanding why Trump is using El Salvador to test the limits of illegal deportation requires returning to the US’s long history of outsourcing violence.

The author on capitalism’s critics, why everyone is so unhappy with the system, and what may come next.

The author of a new biography talks about the conservative journalist’s life and legacy.

From Iran-contra to Iraq war WMD lies to Trumpism, this right-wing pundit kept subverting democracy. 

The Amazon founder was once the newspaper’s savior; now journalists are fleeing as the paper that brought down Nixon struggles under Trump’s second term.

On two new books that critique identity politics and seek a new vision of political culture.

The challenge: how to catalog and derive meaning from so much digital clutter.

The brutal caning of Sen. Charles Sumner in 1856 shows the difference between courage and concession.

On the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, racism, and federal power.

High-minded and scandal-prone, a foe of marriage who dreamed of domesticity, Fuller radiated a charisma that helped ignite the fight for women’s rights.

Ambitious office seekers during the nineteenth century experienced wild swings of fortune that depended on the public’s mood and party benevolence.

Trump’s war against elite academia has created an uncanny parallel to the most dramatic fight in Jackson’s day—the attack on the 2nd Bank of the United States.

A new book illuminates how freedom became associated with choice and questions whether that has been a good thing—for women in particular.

On the other side of the hardened activist was a man who stirred his coffee with his daughter's finger and told her it made it sweet.

A new documentary revisits a pivotal week at Gallaudet University in 1988.

The Great Society’s Model Cities Program wasn’t perfect. But it offered a vision of what democratic, community-based planning could look like.