Excerpts

Two stories from the 19th century about government records being falsified to foment distrust of nonwhite Americans.

1988 was a pivotal year in how “white liberals” are perceived by their fellow Americans.

A group of early 20th-century Catholics sought to impose their standards of morality onto the growing and scandal-ridden Hollywood film industry.

A history of wealth, enterprise, and family dysfunction.

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

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

The state of design in 1970.

The aviator’s publicity-mad husband, George Palmer Putnam, kept pushing her to risk her life for the sake of fame.

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

Why are avocados everywhere?

In 1965, the two intellectual giants squared off in a debate at Cambridge. It didn’t go quite as Buckley hoped.

After the Civil War, conservatives used terrorism, cold-blooded murder, and economic coercion to fight the new state constitution in South Carolina.

On the “Atta-Girls,” the pilots who chased adventure during the Second World War.

The revolutionary history behind one of America’s main musical exports.

Texans left an enduring mark on the gunfighter era. The frontier was a darker place because of it.

On the early history of Black participation in America's pastime.

The history of the three-drug combo used in death-penalty executions. 

On the centuries-long historical evolution of a serpentine symbol.

“When you invent the plane, you also invent the plane crash.”

John Quincy Adams challenges the idea of an expanding American frontier. 

How the dystopian visions of the nativist right are in keeping with a long tradition of neoliberal ideology.

Dan Nadel on the formative awkward adolescence of an iconic American cartoonist.

This Passover, American Jews should embrace the fight for “emancipation of all kinds.”

How neoliberals fell in love with “human nature”—the glue that still unites the divergent factions of the new right.

Ryan White changed perceptions of the disease in the United States.

Examining the tumultuous bond between the two brothers.

In 1966, the conductor arrived in Vienna with a mission: to restore Gustav Mahler’s place in 20th-century music.

In the 1990s, an entire industry was born of trying to convince Americans that Beanie Babies were a great investment opportunity.

In the 1930s, approximately half a million Mexicans left the United States. Many families had American-born children to whom Mexico was a foreign land.

The public and private battles waged across Europe and the United States during the 1918 flu pandemic.

Dean Acheson, President Truman’s prim, patrician undersecretary of state, was sitting in his office on February 21, 1947, when he received a visitor.

On the movement that fought for old-age pensions during the Great Depression.

On the ongoing battle to desegregate schools across America throughout the 1960s.

For historian Russell Shorto, it was all about water.

Vincent Conlon’s secret life in the United States as an operative and gun-running Irish rebel.

On the scholarship and intellectual legacies of Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, William Dunning and other academics.

Who decides how history gets written?

In 1885, white rioters murdered dozens of their Asian neighbors in Rock Springs, Wyoming. 140 years later, the story of the atrocity is still being unearthed.

Was the pro wrestler known as “the Cuban Wonder” really the first Black world champion?

On the early career of the actor-cum-politician who changed America.

Video games, violence and the enduring allure of the vigilante hero.

The scene at the 1964 Republican National Convention, when Barry Goldwater was nominated and black Republicans’ worst fears about their party were confirmed.

If world leaders had been clearer about the sanctions Putin would face, they might have deterred his invasion of Ukraine.

On the case that provoked the courts to decide if the federal government had jurisdiction to exercise American criminal law over Native peoples on Native lands.

The Puritan origins of modern ideas about migration.

In the summer of 1842, young Abraham Lincoln’s razor-sharp wit almost got him into a whole heap of trouble.

Video has become our dominant cultural medium, yet we lack reliable archives for the audiovisual record.

How historians changed their approach, from the 1960s to the present.

The U.S. was once the world’s most geographically mobile society. Now we’re stuck in place—and that’s a very big problem.

Confederates kidnapped free Black people to sell into slavery. After the war, two women sought help from high places to track down their lost loved ones.