Excerpts

The liberal jeremiad warns that democracy is fragile, institutions must be defended, and that vigilance is the price of liberty.

An institutional history of the “peculiar institution.”

Passing your eyes over those first, electric sentences, it occurs to you that his readers are still catching up.

What we lose when casual nudity disappears.

Google grew from a Stanford project into a $3T tech giant, pioneering search, data scaling, and AI, now challenged by regulation and chatbots.

Neoliberals long preached that markets and technology reinforce each other. In reality, when one develops, the other tends to stagnate.

In 1990, one of the great forgotten acts of American subterfuge unfolded. It involved Pizza Hut.

Slavery in Latin America, on a huge scale, was different from that in the United States. Why don’t we know this history?

"The Atlantic" was born in an era of information overload.

Key historical records about the incident during the Reagan administration, known as the Able Archer 83 War Scare, were removed without explanation.

The parallels between two American nonprofits that control major for-profit corporations.

A short history of the long war on drugs in Latin America from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump.

In some ways, Thanksgiving is a tradition that unites Americans. But the classic image of the Pilgrims obscures important parts of the country’s story.

William James’s ‘moral equivalent of war’ a hundred years later.

On the enduring influence of one of the genre's most iconic drum riffs.

In 1975, Australia’s PM Whitlam was dismissed by Governor-General Kerr in a US-influenced, Cold War–era soft coup.

How an Irish immigrant’s 1838 ballot in Illinois sparked a court battle over voting rights for non-citizens.

Marty Reisman, a brilliant, hustling ping-pong showman, rose from NYC clubs to global fame, clashed with officials, defied the sponge era, and left a legend.

Fifty years ago today, Angola gained its independence from Portuguese domination. But the US was already working hard to snuff out the hopes of liberation.

The fantastical roots of “scientific racism.”

What led Peter Matthiessen from spying to starting a magazine?

Histories of the epidemic tend to focus on coastal cities, but the response was very different in the middle of the country.

A new myth appeared during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson.

Burns and co-director Sarah Botstein discuss their six-part, 10-year labor of love, which finally makes it to PBS on November 16.

What the rise of the “Waterpark Capital of the World” means for its namesake riverscape.

The new Netflix miniseries makes the 1881 killing of President James Garfield feel thrillingly current.

The discovery of DNA was evidence of how deeply interconnected humans are, but the late scientist saw only difference.

Amid plans to mark the nation’s semiquincentennial, many are asking whether or not the people really do rule, and whether the law is still king.

The most consequential shift that year was not one of battle lines but of ideology.

A writer looks back at the book that shaped her understanding of girlhood, body, and shame.

The early-20th-century socialist and New York mayoral candidate Morris Hillquit saw liberalism and democracy as a foundation for a transition to socialism.

Fitzgerald sank in a 1975 storm; Lightfoot’s song made it iconic. The wreck came to symbolize the Midwest’s industrial decline.

The 1894 election cycle holds some key lessons for partisan gerrymanders today.

Restoring stability to American politics will require reviving an age-old concept: common ground.

Over decades, and through harrowing experiences, my family held on to this bit of cloth as a reminder of everything they believed in—and were running toward.

The transnational nature of America's fight for independence.

For many, Dick Cheney epitomized idealistic foreign policy hubris.

Municipal bonds have become an unavoidable part of local governance—and their costs divide rich towns from poor ones.

Theodore Roosevelt was the first White House occupant to seek control over how newspapers covered him.

The series dramatizes the brief tenure of the 20th president, who was fatally shot by Charles Guiteau, a lawyer who believed he’d secured Garfield’s election.

What makes a house feel haunted and why do people keep telling these stories?

For 150 years, Atlanta has endured racist policing that has served the interest of the city’s economic elite. The fight to resist this goes back just as far.

Plath felt that marriage and children were the necessary but insufficient condition of her continued creativity.

How a shady car battery additive called AD-X2 sparked a showdown between the U.S. country’s political and scientific establishments.

What does 1968 have to do with 2025?

A new biopic starring Sydney Sweeney as the legendary athlete chronicles Martin’s fights in and outside of the ring.

Looking back, and ahead, on the anniversary of a White House warning.

Photographs that show "a country of people made rich at the expense of the environment, but seeing the richness spoiled by a world they’ve destroyed."

How the conservative scholar’s 1996 bestseller anticipated blaming everything on “woke.”

New York City NIMBYism, restrictive zoning, and Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s "Abundance."