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Angela Davis standing at podium, speaking at Communist Party USA event.

How and Why American Communism Failed

Plus: One historian’s about-face on the Communist record.
Norman Mailer in front of Brooklyn skyline.

The New York Intellectuals’ Battle of the Sexes

Norman Mailer’s generation learned to “write like men.” But their female contemporaries from Mary McCarthy to Diana Trilling pioneered a more enduring style.
Poster for the WPA theatrical production of "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis

Stealing the Show

Why conservatives killed America’s federally funded theater.
Sandinista rebels ride a tank in Managua in 1979.
partner

The U.S. Isn’t the Main Character of This History

Researching the Sandinista Revolution from Nicaraguans’ perspective.
Angela Davis

The AAUP and the Angela Davis Case

Revisiting the AAUP's 1971 UCLA investigation.
A burning candle in front of the American flag.

The Origins of Conservatism’s ‘Gnostic’ Meme

You can thank Eric Voegelin for the right’s clichéd catchall critique for the left.
Edward R. Murrow on the telephone.

Edward R. Murrow Wasn’t the First Journalist to Question Joseph McCarthy’s Communist Witch Hunts

As the fear of communist subversion spread throughout America, McCarthy launched hearings that were based on scant evidence and overblown charges.
At center: organized labor leader John L. Lewis surrounded by crowds of male workers of all races.

Fragile Juggernaut

Introducing a project on US labor history, exploring what we can learn from 1930s-1950s industrial struggles.
Carl McIntire reading the Christian Manifesto outside Riverside Church in New York City and on the right, McIntire leaves Riverside Church, where the Christian Manifesto hangs above the doorway.

The U.S. Culture Wars Abroad: Liberal-Evangelical Rivalry and Decolonization in Southern Africa

As evangelicals worked to gain public legitimacy during the Cold War, historians of evangelicalism search for a usable past for their fellow believers.
Refugees board an Air America plane in Da Nang, Vietnam, on Jan. 23, 1968.

Pensions for the “Deep State:” Republicans Push Benefits for the CIA’s Secret Vietnam-Era Airline

Marco Rubio and Glenn Grothman want to recognize the contribution of Air America, the CIA airline that supported secret wars in Laos and Cambodia.
Martin Luther King, Jr. with hands raised in front of bookshelf

Martin Luther King, Critical Race Theorist

Republicans may claim otherwise, but the civil rights hero was no color-blind conservative.
Tom Wolfe in profile against the New York City skyline.

The Electric Kool-Aid Conservative

Tom Wolfe was no radical.
J. Edgar Hoover

J. Edgar Hoover Shaped US History for the Worse

As director of the FBI for decades, J. Edgar Hoover helped build a massive, professionalized national security state and hounded leftists out of public life.
Nixon examining a roll of microfilm with a magnifying glass.

Microfilm Hidden in a Pumpkin Launched Richard Nixon’s Career 75 Years Ago

On Dec. 2, 1948, evidence stashed in a hollowed-out pumpkin incriminated suspected Soviet spy Alger Hiss and boosted a young Richard Nixon’s political status.
Charlie Chaplin in a still from “The Great Dictator.”

The War on Charlie Chaplin

He was one of the world’s most celebrated and beloved stars. Then his adopted country turned against him.
Bayard Rustin speaking at an event.

Eclipsed in His Era, Bayard Rustin Gets to Shine in Ours

The civil-rights mastermind was sidelined by his own movement. Now he’s back in the spotlight. What can we learn from his strategies of resistance?
Charlie Chaplin.

A Man Without a Country: On Scott Eyman’s “Charlie Chaplin vs. America”

Our favorite artists may not be our favorite people.
A young J. Edgar Hoover sitting at a desk.

When Hoover Met Palmer: Domestic Surveillance and Radical Suppression in the Early Days of the FBI

J. Edgar Hoover’s ascent within the FBI reveals the birth of an unprecedented surveillance apparatus that would survey US citizens for decades to come.
Political cartoon of men interrogating anxious teacher and inspecting classroom materials.

Political Repression and the AAUP from 1915 to the Present

How can we most efficiently defend the imperiled academy?
J. Edgar Hoover

How the FBI Aided the Rise of White Christian Nationalism in the US

It was J. Edgar Hoover who did more than any fire-breathing churchman to turn fearful white suburbanites into the crusaders of a renewed conservative backlash.

The Spanish-Speaking William F. Buckley

Buckley’s seldom-acknowledged fluency in Spanish shaped his worldview—including his admiration for dictators from Spain to Chile and beyond.
John Birch Society book store.

A Mid-Century Playbook for Saving Progressive American Education

Fifty years ago, parents united to get the far-right John Birch Society out of their schools.
A still from the 1960 film Spartacus of two Roman gladiators fighting.

How Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus Broke the Hollywood Blacklists

The 1960 film was penned by two blacklisted Communist writers. Its arrival in theaters was a middle finger to the McCarthyist witch hunt in Hollywood.
John F. Kennedy shaking hands with Lyndon Johnson and Walter George

Samuel Moyn Can’t Stop Blaming Trumpism on Liberals

"Liberalism Against Itself" makes an incoherent attack on liberalism.
Conservative College Campus Counterprotesters with signs saying "Peace Through Victory in Vietnam."

Modern Conservatism Was Born on College Campuses. So Why Does the GOP Hate Them?

Leaders of the political right learned lessons from the 1960s that still inform the movement today.
Senator Joseph McCarthy (left) during the Army-McCarthy hearings, with Pvt. G. David Schine (center) and Roy Cohn (right), June 7, 1954, in Washington, DC.

McCarthyite Laws Targeting Leftists Are Still on the Books Across the Country

Communists were excluded from an Oklahoma Pride festival recently, a reminder of how easily the Red Scare’s mechanisms for state repression can be revived.
Mexican president José López Portillo at a press conference on May 19, 1980.

Declassified Documents Uncover Yet Another Mexican President’s CIA Ties

Recently declassified documents have exposed former Mexican president José López Portillo as a CIA asset.
John Birch Society banner over table with books

How the John Birch Society Won the Long Game

The American right doesn’t need the John Birch Society these days, but that is because it’s adopted the Birchers’ extremism wholesale.
Director Edward Dmytryk and actress Jean Porter.

The 1950s Hollywood Blacklist Was an Assault on Free Expression

The blacklist didn’t just ruin many workers’ careers — it narrowed the range of acceptable movies and contributed to the conservatism of the 1950s.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn in March 1949.

New Hampshire Removes Historical Marker For Feminist With Communist Past

The state removed the educational marker after Concord Republicans complained about Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's communist ties.

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