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Shadowy photograph of two people standing in front of statue of Lincoln in Lincoln Memorial

In Jon Meacham’s Biography, Lincoln Is a Guiding Light For Our Times

The famous historian makes the claim that the demigods of American historical mythology can help us carve paths through our forbidding 21st-century wilderness.
A father and son stand in front of an illustration of a circular target, while the son holds a small gun.
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American as Apple Pie

How marketing made guns a fundamental element of contemporary boyhood.

Light Under a Bushel: A Q&A with Eric Foner

“It’s important to study history if you want to be an intelligent citizen in a democracy.”
Upside down statue spray painted "slave owner."

My Father’s Family Kept Slaves – and He Defended It. Acknowledging It Matters

Amid a rise of laws forbidding discussions of racist histories, sharing our ancestors’ shameful wrongdoings is more urgent than ever.
Exhibit

Civil War Memory

Historical understandings and myths about the Civil War's causes, meanings, and legacies still shape American culture and national discourse about the country's future.

Newspaper lithograph of people fleeing the yellow fever epidemic on a boat in Mississippi.

The Sick Society

The story of a regional ruling class that struck a devil’s bargain with disease, going beyond negligence to cultivate semi-annual yellow fever epidemics.
A vintage public school textbook on the history of Virginia.
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The Virginia History its State Board Doesn’t Want Students to Know

Our racial history is complex and important, but debates today are eliding entire chapters of it.
The American flag depicted upside down, in a beige color scheme.

Making the Constitution Safe for Democracy

The second section of the Fourteenth Amendment offers severe penalties for menacing the right to vote—if anyone can figure out how to enforce it.
Black and white portrait of Joseph Lane in his suit.

What if Joseph Lane of Oregon had become President in 1861?

How would the presidency have looked under Joseph Lane, a Democrat, as opposed to Abraham Lincoln?
A street with a sign above it reading "Welcome to San Bernardino."

California's Never-Ending Secessionist Movement — and its Grim Ties To Slavery in the State

San Bernardino County may explore seceding from California. Many of the earliest separatists wanted to transform Southern California into a slave state.
Illustration of Annette Gordon-Reed.

Majority Rule on the Brink

The legacies of our racial past, and the prospects ahead for an embattled republic.
A courtroom or public civic room full of people, with white and black people sitting on opposite sides of a railing.

When Tribal Nations Expel Their Black Members

Clashes between sovereignty rights and civil rights reveal an uncomfortable and complicated story about race and belonging in America.
Collage of summer camp, toasting marshmallows, swimming, boating, camping, trees, and wildflowers.

The Life Lessons of Summer Camp

A few weeks in the woods have taught kids to face new situations, make their way among strangers, solve their own problems—and live a more authentic life.
A collection of flags, games, and printed matter from the Civil War
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Patriotism and Consumerism in the Civil War

For a burgeoning consumer society, store-bought flags and bonnets offered proof that commercialism could go hand in hand with heartfelt emotion.

America’s Crisis-Industrial Complex

Are alarmist narratives about a “new civil war” obscuring the real battle in US politics: the fight for democracy?
Smallpox vaccine vial and syringe.

Never Forget That Early Vaccines Came From Testing on Enslaved People

The practice of vaccination in the U.S. cannot be divorced from the history of slavery.
Students and professor at a 19th century furnace in the Jefferson National Forest.

In Jefferson National Forest, Trees are Survivors

"The tallest trees at Roaring Run remember sending down taproots even as the furnace stones were still warm. Desecration is not ironclad."
Kris Manjapra standing outside by a wall. He examines the history of when slavery ended, emancipation laws kept the enslaved in bondage—and rewarded the enslavers.

How Slavery Ended Slowly, and Emancipation Laws Often Kept the Enslaved in Bondage

Tufts Professor Kris Manjapra examines the history of the injustice of abolition in the U.S. and abroad and the need for reparations in his new book.
“America” carrying the nation’s flag, circa 1860. Lithograph by Currier and Ives.

Our Flag Was Still There

In his comprehensive study of the national anthem, a historian and musicologist examines our complicated relationship to a famously challenging song.
Artwork of the Supreme Court but with chess pieces used as columns..

The Supreme Court Is Not Supposed to Have This Much Power

And Congress should claw it back.
Crowd gathers at the Memorial Amphitheater, circa 1920-1950.

Flowers of Remembrance Day: Inaugurating a New Tradition at Arlington National Cemetery

Decorating graves with flowers, from a Civil War grassroots ritual of remembrance to a national tradition honoring all military dead.
Reflection on glass of a bitcoin symbol and a downward trending stock market graph.
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Digital Currencies Are Repeating the Problems of 19th-Century Paper Money

History’s lessons for the volatile digital currency markets.
The Alamo.

Texas' White Guy History Project

The 1836 Project will indoctrinate new Texans with fables about our history.
Ballet Folklorico de la Tierra del Encanto dancers entertain attendees during the Cinco De Mayo Fiesta on the plaza in Mesilla, N.M., on May 6, 2017.
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Cinco De Mayo: American As Apple Empanadas

Cinco de Mayo has deep roots in Mexican American history.
Illustration of W.E.B DuBois

W.E.B. Du Bois’s Abolition Democracy

The enduring legacy and capacious vision of "Black Reconstruction."
Pro-choice protest outside Supreme Court
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The Reconstruction Amendments Matter When Considering Abortion Rights

The cruelty of enslavers when it came to reproduction and families shaped the 13th and 14th Amendments.
Person making call in telephone booth.

The Making of the Surveillance State

The public widely opposed wiretapping until the 1970s. What changed?
Book cover featuring abstract watercolor splotches behind the title "American Exceptionalism."

"A New History of an Old Idea"

On Ian Tyrrell’s "American Exceptionalism: A New History of an Old Idea."
INTERIM ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES A map of slavery laws in the United States, from 1775 to 1865.

A Reckoning With How Slavery Ended

A new book examines the ways white slaveholders were compensated, while formerly enslaved people were not.
Lithograph of African Americans in prayer as Liberty lays a wreath on Charles Sumner’s casket. By Matt Morgan, from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 1874.

Reconciliation Process

When Charles Sumner died in 1874, a bill he had sponsored two years earlier threatened to overshadow his legacy.
Ray Walston, Eileen Brennan and Paul Newman in the 1973 movie ‘The Sting,’ in which con artists use wiretapping to gamble on a horse race.

The Wiretappers Who Invented a High-Tech Crime

Before Americans worried about government or corporate surveillance, 19th-century criminals took advantage of a new technology to steal valuable information.

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