nihilism — Bunk History

Meme of white Gen X voters in their ironic cynicism.

We Care a Lot: White Gen Xers and Political Nihilism

Since the 2024 election, liberals, progressives, and the left has been wringing our collective hands over why Trump won yet again.

by Mindy Clegg via 3 Quarks Daily on December 20, 2024

Herbert Spencer

The Man Who Believed in Nothing - Part II

Spencerism in America.

by Henry Snow via Another Way on March 4, 2025

An eagle in its nest of the American flag, which holds eggs representing the states.

From Woke to Solidarity

On two new books that critique identity politics and seek a new vision of political culture.

by Michael S. Roth via Los Angeles Review of Books on December 24, 2024

Cormac McCarthy.

Cormac McCarthy’s Unforgiving Parables of American Empire

He demonstrated how the frontier wasn’t an incubator of democratic equality but a place of unrelenting pain, cruelty, and suffering.

by Greg Grandin via The Nation on June 21, 2023

Map of the western hemisphere, with red rings circling Cuba to show the range of the country's nuclear missiles.

The Cuban Missile Crisis at 60: An Imperfect Memory, but a Useful Warning

Viewed as public memory, the Crisis has an extraordinarily useful function today: a nuclear warning for the future.

by Sarah E. Robey via Process: A Blog for American History on October 28, 2022

Collage of Stephen Crane with Civil War scenes

The Miracle of Stephen Crane

Born after the Civil War, he turned himself into its most powerful witness—and modernized the American novel.

by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on October 18, 2021

The Literal (and Figurative) Whiteness of Moby Dick

For Herman Melville, the color white could be horrifyingly bleak.

by Gabrielle Bellot via Literary Hub on August 1, 2019

A Hundred Years After the Armistice

If you think the First World War began senselessly, consider how it ended.

by Adam Hochschild via The New Yorker on October 28, 2018

How the 1970s Shaped Trump's Vision

The one consistent message coming out of today's White House was born in the 1970s: Don’t trust any institution.

by Julian E. Zelizer via The Atlantic on April 8, 2018

Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich.

They Were Made for Each Other

How Newt Gingrich laid the groundwork for Donald Trump's rise.

by Nicole Hemmer, Brent Cebul via The New Republic on July 11, 2016

The all seeing eye reveals that the American flag is melting.

America’s Broken Commonwealth

The nation’s founding myth was based on faith and solidarity – but it also contained the roots of today’s democratic crisis.

by Rowan Williams via New Statesman on May 22, 2025

Governor Philip La Follette signing the old-age pension bill in Madison, Wisconsin in 1931.

The Golden Age of Wisconsin Socialism

At its peak in the 1920s and early ’30s, the Socialist Party in Wisconsin used confrontational tactics and nonsocialists alliances to make legislative advances.

by Joshua Kluever via Jacobin on September 12, 2024

Trent Reznor

Knots, Ties, and Lines: “The Downward Spiral” at Thirty

Nine Inch Nails, the Manson Family, and the contradictions of Los Angeles.

by Gianni de Falco via Cleveland Review of Books on July 16, 2024

Lou Reed in front of a photography setup.

The Canonization of Lou Reed

In a new biography, the Velvet Underground front man embodies a New York that exists only in memory.

by Jeremy Lybarger via The New Republic on October 17, 2023

Illustrated portrait of Don DeLillo against a firey background.

Secret Histories

Don DeLillo's Cold Wars.

by Siddhartha Deb via The Nation on June 26, 2023

Ted Kaczynski, before and after terror attacks, with writings

The Tragedy of the Unabomber

Ted Kaczynski’s criticisms of environmental destruction and out-of-control technology were incisive, but his terroristic methods had no chance of solving those problems.

by Alex Skopic via Current Affairs on June 22, 2023

Illustration of Frankenstein's monster and a terrified woman

The Horror Century

From the first morbid films a hundred years ago, scary movies always been a dark mirror on Americans’ deepest fears and anxieties.

by Aja Romano via Vox on October 19, 2021

An illustration of an accordion being played.

The "Good Old Rebel" at the Heart of the Radical Right

How a satirical song mocking uneducated Confederates came to be embraced as an anthem of white Southern pride.

by Joseph M. Thompson via Southern Cultures on January 21, 2021

How Americans Came to Distrust Science

For a century, critics of all political stripes have challenged the role of science in society. Repairing distrust requires confronting those arguments head on.

by Andrew Jewett via Boston Review on November 2, 2020

Black and white photo montage of the cover of We're Not Here to Entertain, with a punk rock singer and Ronald Reagan, superimposed on a background of Minor Threat playing on stage.

Remember Punk Rock? Probably Not...: The Real Culture War of 1980's America

When most people hear the word “punk,” they think of drug addled, nasty behavior. The truth is, it was driven by a visceral hatred for the president.

by Kevin Mattson via HNN on August 30, 2020

Photograph of Sun Ra by Ming Smith

Sun Ra: ‘I’m Everything and Nothing’

Sun Ra, a seminal artist of afrofuturism, embraced a unique vision of blackness.

by Namwali Serpell via New York Review of Books on July 12, 2020

Rendering Judgment on America

A new book systematically defends the American Founding against those who believe it was destined to end in nihilism.

by Samuel Gregg via Public Discourse on July 1, 2020

brought to you by

© Bunk History