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Collage of various black women mentioned within the article.

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Edda L. Fields-Black on the Combahee River Raid

Harriet Tubman’s revolutionary Civil War raid and the power of preserving Black history in the face of political pushback.
Walt Whitman

Brag and Humblebrag: Walt Whitman’s Encounters

Walt Whitman was a champion self-advertiser, maven of the brag and the humblebrag.
A newspaper drawing of St. Louis from above.
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German Radicals vs. the Slave Power

In "Memoirs of a Nobody," Henry Boernstein chronicles the militant immigrant organizing that helped keep St. Louis out of the hands of the Confederacy.
Karl Marx gazing off into the distance while surrounded by books

Karl Marx’s Legacy in the United States

For two centuries, Karl Marx’s thoughts have significantly impacted US politics. In turn, his close study of the US informed the development of his ideas.
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.

Abraham Lincoln

Was the Civil War Inevitable?

Before Lincoln turned the idea of “the Union” into a cause worth dying for, he tried other means of ending slavery in America.
Harvard University "veritas" seal displayed on flags on its campus.

Harvard Stood Up to Trump. Too Bad the School Wasn’t Always So Brave.

The university’s last “finest hour” was more than 200 years ago.
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

Chamberlain’s War

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is remarkable not only for his sacrifices on behalf of the Union, but also for the moral imagination that inspired him.
A drawing of Confederate soldiers on horseback violently forcing Black people to walk south.

After Confederate Forces Took Their Children, These Black Mothers Fought to Reunite Their Families

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.

The Other Side of Sherman’s March

The general’s campaign through the South is known for its brutality against civilians. For the enslaved who followed his army, though, it was a shot at freedom.
A group of indigenous Pacific Islanders forced to work on a sugar plantation, with a white overseer in the background.

How ‘Blackbirders’ Forced Tens of Thousands of Pacific Islanders Into Slavery After the Civil War

The decline of Southern industries paved the way for plantations in Fiji and Australia, where victims of “blackbirding” endured horrific working conditions.
Church with graveyard.

Divided Providence

Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War.
Political cartoon depicting contrabands carrying cannons, oblivious to their exploitation by the U.S. Army.

Racism and the Limits of Imagination in the United States and the Confederacy

Why did it take so long for the U.S. Army to authorize the enlistment of Black men as soldiers?
A Public Health Services physician checking a woman immigrating into the United States for illness.

How the Irish Became Everything

Two new books explore the messy complexities of immigration—from the era of Lincoln to Irish New York.
The Geologic Time Spiral showing different periods over millions of years.

Deep Time and the Civil War Dead

The Civil War's vast death toll joined Earth's deep time story, magnifying its meaning as part of God's creative acts across eons.
Ulysses S. Grant finishing his memoir shortly before he died.

Grant vs. the Klan

New books reconsider how Ulysses S. Grant became a forceful defender of the rights of African Americans after the Civil War.
Man burning a picture of Abraham Lincoln.

City on Fire

The night violent anti-government conspirators sowed chaos in the heart of Manhattan.
A sign that reads "In God We Trust" over the seal of the United States.

Mainline Protestants and Christian Nationalism

Exploring the role mainline Protestants have played in promoting the idea of America as a Christian country.
A photograph of the battlefield at Antietam.
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A Remote Reality

Depictions of Antietam couldn’t possible capture the magnitude of the battle’s horror.
Aurora Borealis painting by Frederic Edwin Church, 1865.
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A Nice Metaphor for the Country

On the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago.
Illustration imagining Karl Marx sitting on a ranch in Texas.

Marx Goes to Texas

Drawn to communities of German socialist expatriates in the area, Marx once considered making his way to Texas.
Gratz Cohen and the manuscript of one of his poems.

A Savannah Poet

The Civil War cut short many lives, and a new a book that blends the genres of history and memoir sets out the resurrect the memory of one of those lives.
Lithograph of George Washington on his land with people he enslaved.

What, to the American, Is Revolutionary?

The colonial rebellion we celebrate every July 4th doesn’t fit the definition.
Cover of "A Great Disorder."

In Need of a New Myth

Myths to explain American history and chart a path to the future once helped to bind the country together. Today, they are absorbed into the culture wars.
Harriet Tubman.

The Radical Faith of Harriet Tubman

A new book conveys in dramatic detail what America’s Moses did to help abolish slavery. Another addresses the love of God and country that helped her do so.
“Scene Representing the Suffering of Animals in a Railroad Stable” in the 1873 annual report of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

How the Civil War Spurred The Animal Welfare Movement

The story of American abolitionists who, after Emancipation, pivoted from antislavery campaigns to animal welfare advocacy.
A print titled "Heroes of the Colored Race," centered on portraits of Blanche Bruce, Frederick Douglas, and Hiram Revels.

Slavery, Capitalism, and the Politics of Abolition

"The Reckoning," Robin Blackburn’s monumental history, offers a dizzying account of the politics behind slavery's rise and fall.
Richard Slotkin.

“A Theory of America”: Mythmaking with Richard Slotkin

"I was always working on a theory of America."
Abraham Lincoln campaigning with the Wide Awakes.

The Club of Cape-Wearing Activists Who Helped Elect Lincoln—and Spark the Civil War

The untold story of the Wide Awakes, the young Americans who took up the torch for their antislavery cause and stirred the nation.
Statute of Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, with construction hook ready to remove it.
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History Shows the Danger of Comparing Trump to Jesus

It’s important to remember why analogies to Jesus should stay out of the political realm. The results are always ugly.
Civil War soldiers on horseback with pistols.

The Hunt for John Wilkes Booth Goes On

A new television miniseries depicts the pursuit of Lincoln’s killer. But the public appetite for tales about the chase began even as it was happening.

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