Excerpts

Into the 1980s, the heart of the California food revolution was also a hub of French fine dining. Why did the goat cheese and sundried tomatoes win?

The latest battlefield in the GOP’s “anti-woke” crusade.

Planners of the Interstate Highway System ignored warnings that they were damaging poor Black and Latino neighborhoods.

Four tapes mysteriously donated reveal uncertainty within the death chamber—and indicate the prison neglected to record evidence during an execution gone wrong.

The machine breaks down: A brief history of Tammany Hall.

APAAS, Florida, and history.

Success moving forward requires building a more inclusive movement than what existed during the Roe v. Wade era.

Confederate monuments helped to erase the history of those white and black southerners who remained loyal and were willing to give their lives to save the United States.

Treaties with Britain, the Confederated tribes, and Spain revealed that America was still dependent on the greater geopolitics of the Atlantic World.

In practice, aggressive congressional investigations of the intelligence community require consistent levels of public support.

Religious conservatives see “anti-eugenic” laws as the most promising path to establish a federal ban on abortion.

The justices’ decision not to hear challenges to the explicitly racist Insular Cases is part of a long tradition of favoring process over substance.

What will be the legacy of the Black Arts Movement? Ishmael Reed reflects on the transformation and growth of Black arts since the 1960s.

Hundreds of classic cartoons vanished without warning. How can you raise your kids on favorites you can’t access anymore?

In 1877, one million workers went on strike and fought police and federal troops in cities across America.

Heirs to an iconic fortune sought out a wealth manager who would assuage their progressive consciences. Now their dispute is exposing dynastic secrets.

A disastrous oil spill in Alaska and massive rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico revealed a pattern of unsettled standards and inconsistent oversight.

How the CIA tried to trick the Soviets with sex dolls (but ultimately got screwed).

The school was funded by colonial taxation of tobacco grown by forced labor on colonized Indian lands.

History and controversy in the architecture of the Latter-day Saints.

A Steel City bibliography of Pittsburgh.

They were made by Alexander Graham Bell and his fellow researchers between 1881 and 1892

Americans helped spread a right-wing version of evangelical Christianity in Brazil. Now it has played a role in an insurrection.

Looking back at half a century of truth-telling and rebelling.

Any critical take on public monuments today must confront the reality that public lands are themselves colonized lands.

Stephanie St. Clair, who gained notoriety as a criminal entrepreneur and a fashion icon, was a powerful Black woman able to wrest control in a world run by men.

Robert Greenstein isn’t a household name. But his career lobbying for the poor has changed the lives of millions of Americans.

New technology has facilitated the transportation of oil, but spills remain a risk.

Political scientist Richard Bensel explains the feedback loops between policy commitments of political elites and the regional distribution of political power.

A historian’s journey into the relationship between Alexander Darnes and Edmund Kirby Smith starts with a surprising eulogy.

In the 1960s, white Appalachian workers attempted to put down roots in Chicago by building an integrated model neighborhood called Hank Williams Village.

Martin Luther King’s words are available publicly — for a price.

One war, in one city, Philadelphia, and the fate of the men, women, and children left behind as collateral damage in the wake of conflict.

Conservative “populism” has never been about egalitarianism, but about mobilizing support for traditional hierarchies.

The great grand strategist of the Cold War believed he failed in his most important task.

The investigative committee singles out Trump for his role in the attack. As prosecution, the report is thorough. But as historical explanation it’s a mess.

A form of entertainment and outgrowth of desperation, self-styled rainmakers allowed the powerless people of the Great Plains to seemingly take action.

White American empire transformed Minnesota into an agricultural and extraction-based economy that uprooted Dakota from their traditional homelands.

The most important third party in the history of American politics is one you may never have heard of before.

A Black Power radical, a Navy veteran, and the story behind the most boring channel on television.

A look at socialism’s far-reaching influence on American thought.

From the machine politicians in La Villita to the radicals in Pilsen, Mexican Chicagoans have played a central role in defining their city. 

The hidden story of a 180-year-old union-busting spy agency.

Why does the government have the power to break massive union strikes? Part of the story is a history of conciliatory railway unionism.

Black refugees’ journey from Virginia to Boston after the Civil War.

The remains of more than 100,000 Native Americans are held by prestigious U.S. institutions, despite a 1990 law meant to return them to tribal nations.

For all the clouds of publicity, the dream machine is actually a craft business. Have we asked too much of it?

Great-power competition demands persuasion, not coercion.

The intertwined history of education, history, and patriotism in the United States.

The use of ‘y'all’ has often been seen as vulgar, low-class and uncultured. That’s starting to change.