Excerpts

The current Hollywood strikes have a precedent in Disney’s golden age, when the company was a hothouse of innovation and punishing expectation.

What Betty and Barney Hill's alien abduction story reveals about America.

A worldwide effort to heal damage to the ozone layer is showing early progress.

Martin’s confession relates outlaw adventures that appear to be original. But were they real? 

How the Plattsburg camps tried (and failed) to raise a volunteer army ahead of World War I.

As Confederate monuments were erected, people turned out to vote in lower numbers in predominantly Black areas.

Lionel Trilling crystallizes the cynical Cold War liberalism that sacrificed idealism for self-restraint.

A more sympathetic look at Aaron Burr, the man who killed Alexander Hamilton.

Were Harriet Boyd and Cora Stewart rivals in Greece in 1897? The fog of war has obscured a groundbreaking tale.

A new book identifies the 1968 Democratic convention as the moment when broad public regard for the news media gave way to widespread distrust, and American divisiveness took off.

“It is true that my life has been threatened as the leader of this playground campaign,” wrote Mabel E. Macomber in 1929 from Brooklyn’s Bedford neighborhood.

Friedan was indispensable to second-wave feminism. And yet she was difficult to like.

The 50th anniversary of a groundbreaking work.

A conversation about the Cold War’s profound and negative influence on the liberal worldview.

"Liberalism Against Itself" makes an incoherent attack on liberalism.

During World War II, the OSS sent Moe Berg to Europe, where he gathered intel on Germany's efforts to build an atomic bomb.

In "American Slavers," Sean M. Kelley surveys the relatively unknown history of Americans who traded in slaves in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

During World War II, proto–music videos called “soundies” blared pop patriotism from visual jukeboxes across American bars.

A re-examination of the Age of Exploration may have more than a little to teach us about modern venture capitalists.

Harriet Beecher Stowe said that Josiah Henson’s life had inspired her most famous character. But Henson longed to be recognized by his own name.

Former Secret Service agent Paul Landis, largely silent for 60 years, says he found a bullet in Kennedy’s limo. Here's why that’s so significant, if true.

When I looked at the archives, I found a history hidden in plain sight.

The 1941 strike, following the spectacular success of “Snow White,” stunned Walt Disney and rattled his now-storied company.

Executives feared their newsreel footage would “cause riots and mass hysteria.”

Frank Church and the committee that investigated the US intelligence agencies.

The expansion of higher education in Virginia uprooted hundreds of black families.

One act of generosity during the Great Famine forged a bond that transcends generations.

The Christian right is pushing a slate of laws to stop a new, vague offense they have dubbed “abortion trafficking.”

Repression, mediation, and division of Black resistance from 1906 to the 2020 George Floyd Uprising.

When it comes to the left, the state uses RICO to criminalize radicals as thieves and separate them from a broader base of support.

Some personal reflections on history, memory, and the survival of democracies.

Few realize that the approval process for these outdoor signs varies widely by state and organization, enabling unsanctioned displays to slip through.

Two family histories by Americans connected to Europe’s twentieth century through their fascist grandfathers seek to occupy the void between history and memory.

On Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.”

Favorite slur too racist? Replace it.

Lord, implored President Biden, let us "turn the page" on the War on Terror. Just not yet.

For decades, the military fired explosives on Vieques. The US citizens who live there still face the consequences.

Sixty-plus years ago, the white leaders of Newport News, Virginia, seized the core of a thriving Black community to build a college.

Finding space for cars has remade the built world. A new history uncovers just how much our lives revolve around parking.

In the late 1800s, advice writers targeting white, middle-class Americans began encouraging men to become more engaged in the emotional lives of their households.

After the Whig president’s shocking death, his vice president and successor proved to be a Whig by expedience only

Critics of the Supreme Court think it has lost its claim to legitimacy. But proposals for reforming it must strike a balance with preserving its independence.

The basketball great is now better known for his tie-dye and enthusiastic sports commentary, but in the 1970s, he was a polarizing anti-government activist.

Without the now-obscure land investment affair, Georgia might have been a "super state."

When journalist Dorothy Tucker first learned about the 10 Million Names genealogical project, it helped amplify memories of long car journeys to “Down South."

The forgotten figure symbolized the hopes—and myths—of the early United States.

All along the South Carolina coast, developers looking to profit on vacation getaways and new homes are targeting land owned by descendants of enslaved people.

While we may never know the full truth, we owe it to those harmed and killed to illuminate their stories.

Urban socialists blazed a path toward social democracy. Leftists who want to reclaim this tradition face a whole new set of obstacles.

Advanced Placement courses are no recipe for igniting the intellect beyond high school. They’re a recipe for extinguishing it.