Excerpts

Any attempt to understand the complexities of American economic thought without considering the significant role of religious beliefs is incomplete.

It was no coincidence that public school secularization and desegregation were happening, and failing, simultaneously.

Depictions of Antietam couldn’t possible capture the magnitude of the battle’s horror.

On the making of a centuries-old obsession at the heart of American national identity.

How research helps us understand the past to create a better future.

On Hitler’s attempt to win Americans over to his cause.

On the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago.

The life of John Andrew Jackson — and the vacillating richness and scarcity of the archive.

Chronicling the emergence of a unique blend of counterculture and Christianity.

In the 1920s, many in the U.S. fought for a living Constitution. Plenty of others wanted it dead.

One young conservative lawyer would lead a determined fight to maintain Lewis Powell’s blindfolded race neutrality.

An excess of restrictions has taken a very real toll on the lives of everyday Americans. Their stories must be told.

How Ayabe-way-we-tung guided his tribe in the midst of colonization.

On the impact of systematic oppression on indigenous cuisine in the United States.

Black wet nurses made a show of militance in 1937.

A culture of reverence for the U.S. Constitution shields the founding document from criticism, despite its many shortcomings.

On the life and times of Jason Epstein, cofounder of “The New York Review of Books.”

On defying gender norms and expectations in extreme sports.

How a tragedy in New York City convinced Americans to learn how to swim.

On self-pleasure and sex education in children's literature.

The moral terrain of crowdfunding is fueled by two persistent social ideologies: the dual, and intertwined, myths of meritocracy and the “deserving poor.”

Finding a story in the ways Robert Ray Hamilton, John Dudley Sargent, and Edith Sargent weren’t quite forgotten. 

In a momentous couple of years, the young United States added more than a million square miles of territory, including Texas and California. 

On the profound impact of Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" on Noam Chomsky's early embrace of left-libertarian and anarchist ideologies.

On Nathanael Greene’s inauspicious start.

On our millennia-long love-hate relationship with getting in the water.

Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland provide an outlet for antiwar soldiers.

Looking back on the environmentalist and anti-globalization movements of the 1990s.

Panic about Catholics, Freemasons, and, later, Jews, is deeply woven into American history, and forms the basis of our fertile culture of conspiracy theorizing.

Brea Baker on Black land ownership, historical injustice, and the hope for Black Americans to own more than one percent of the land.

On the early years of the real estate industry, and the racist effort to convince white Americans to buy single-family homes.

The story of how Harriet Tubman led 150 African American soldiers to rescue over 700 former slaves freed five months earlier by the Emancipation Proclamation.

Childhood trauma led Minty Ross (Harriet Tubman) to seek divine intervention.

On the long and continuing struggle of women artists for recognition on their own terms.

The rules governing everything from “Big Brother” to “The Real Housewives” started three decades ago, with a radical experiment on MTV.

The Scottish-born naturalist’s early years in the United States.

An excerpt from the new book "Willie, Waylon, and the Boys."

Public schools are crucial infrastructures of the reproduction of social inequality and the US carceral state.

On the meaning and use of rivers and other waterways.

Following the careers of a family of especially corrupt border control officials.

From the tomato to the hamburger bun, the invention has transformed not just what we eat but taste itself.

In the wake of the 1964 Harlem riots, June Jordan and Buckminster Fuller’s plan to redesign the neighborhood suggested new possibilities for urban life.

On the construction of America's new capital city.

A story of math and political stasis.

In 1936, the Czech track star Zdeněk Koubek became world-famous after undergoing surgery so that he could live openly as a man.

For generations of American radicals, the path to liberation required a new constitution, not forced removal.

When he reflected on the consequences of empire, Conrad saw no logic or teleology. He saw mayhem. There is no surety in "Heart of Darkness."

Waiting for the start of the American Civil War in Canada and the Caribbean.

Abolitionist and writer John Swanson Jacobs on reclaiming liberty in a land of unfreedom.

How James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, and others embraced a new Black humanism.