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Bill Clinton in the background, another man in the foreground.

What the 1990s Did to America

The Law and Economics movement was one front in the decades-long advance of a revived free-market ideology that became the new American consensus.
A demonstrator holds a progress pride flag during the Drag March LA protest in West Hollywood, California.
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The Shameful History of the Lavender Scare Echoes Today

Seventy years after a disgraceful episode of anti-LGTBQ history, we are facing a new wave of McCarthyist fearmongering.
Voter registration at the Brookfield Conference Center in the Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield on Nov. 8.
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Suburbs Have Moved Leftward — Except Around Milwaukee

A far right politics that developed in the middle of the 20th century has prevented Democrats from gaining as they have in suburbs elsewhere.
Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right

‘Birchers,’ a Well-Told, Familiar Entry in the ‘How We Got to Trump’ Genre

In his history of the John Birch Society, Matthew Dallek says Republicans allowed the extreme fringe to “eventually cannibalize the entire party.”
Trump speaking to a crowd; Robert Welch at a podium.

How Far-Right Movements Die

The decline of the John Birch Society offers possible strategies for containing the MAGA movement.
President Bill Clinton speaks about the North American Free Trade Agreement at a town hall meeting in 1993.

The Logic of Capitalist Accumulation Explains Neoliberalism

Gary Gerstle’s new book tackles important questions of the last century about democracy, economy, and war. But it fails to answer a basic question.
J. Robert Oppenheimer.

J. Robert Oppenheimer Cleared of “Black Mark” Against His Name After 68 Years

Manhattan Project physicist was infamously stripped of his security clearance in 1954.
A child in the backyard of the Avenel Cooperative.

The Most Dangerous Architect in America

Gregory Ain wanted to create social housing in Los Angeles. Dogged by the FBI, his hope for more egalitarian architecture never came to be.
J. Edgar Hoover (center) with President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, February 23, 1961.

J. Edgar Hoover Tried to Destroy the Left — and Liberals Enabled Him

The author of a new biography explains how liberals played an important role in enabling Hoover’s antidemocratic crusade.
J. Edgar Hoover in 1924.

How J. Edgar Hoover Went From Hero to Villain

Before his abuses of power were exposed, he was celebrated as a scourge of Nazis, Communists, and subversives.
A portrait of Joe Hill.

Joe Hill Was Killed for Singing Labor’s Song

The labor troubadour Joe Hill was executed by a Utah firing squad for a crime he almost certainly didn’t commit.
Black and white photo of J. Edgar Hoover sitting at his desk.

J. Edgar Hoover, Public Enemy No. 1

The F.B.I. director promised to save American democracy from those who would subvert it—while his secret programs subverted it from within.
Congressional candidate and civil rights activist Julian Bond on primary election night in Atlanta, Georgia, surrounded by microphones.

Atlanta, Georgia, Was a Center of Anti-Apartheid Organizing

The common picture we get of the US South is one of resolute conservatism. But the region has a radical history, too.
Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, speaks during a rally outside the White House in Washington on June 25, 2017.
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Far-Right Views in Law Enforcement are Not New

65 years ago this week, Edwin Walker helped enforce Little Rock integration. Then he devoted himself to segregation.

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.”
A GOP Elephant locked up in a padded cell.

It Didn’t Start with Trump: The Decades-Long Saga of How the GOP Went Crazy

The modern Republican Party has always exploited and encouraged extremism.
Collage of documents and photographs relating to Younghill Kang.

Younghill Kang Is Missing

How an Asian American literary pioneer fell into obscurity.
Headshot illustration of Angela Davis

‘Hell, Yes, We Are Subversive’

For all her influence as an activist, intellectual, and writer, Angela Davis has not always been taken as seriously as her peers. Why not?
Photograph of a woman pushing a shopping cart down a supermarket aisle.

The Secret Anti-Socialist History of Supermarkets

The emergence of the supermarket was used as a key piece of anti-communist propaganda early in the twentieth century against the alternative of grocery co-ops.
Members of the John Birch Society pledging allegiance to the flag at a meeting, Chicago, 1961.

The Birchers & the Trumpers

A new biography of Robert Welch traces the origins and history of the anti-Communist John Birch Society and provides historical perspective on the Trump era.
Photograph of woman interrogated by soldier at Korean prisoner-of-war camp

A Permanent Battle

A new history draws on recently declassified archives to illustrate how the Korean War was an intimate civil conflict, not just a proxy battle between superpowers.
Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara in a Cabinet meeting.

Juxtaposing Liberal Nationalism and International Politics: Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam War

How and why did Johnson consider American military involvement in Vietnam a worthwhile cause that would benefit American interests and American lives?
1950s American family watching TV.

How American Culture Ate the World

A new book explains why Americans know so little about other countries.
Checkpoint Charlie, seen from West Berlin in 1960.

The Disastrous Return of Cold War Strategy

Hal Brands urges the U.S. to make China and Russia “pay exorbitantly” for their policies. History shows that has never worked.
Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson visiting Soviet Jewish émigrés in Israel.

Henry "Scoop" Jackson and the Jewish Cold Warriors

An alliance between Jewish activists and congressional neocons made Soviet Jewry a key issue in superpower relations—and reshaped American Jewish politics.
Picture of Maida Springer Kemp and two other young African American women colleagues.

Maida Springer Kemp Championed Workers’ Rights on a Global Scale

The Panamanian garment worker turned labor organizer, Pan-Africanist, and anti-colonial activist advocated for US and African workers amid a Cold War freeze.
Illustration of burning cannabis with helicopters overhead

The Cold War Killed Cannabis As We Knew It. Can It Rise Again?

Somewhere in Jamaica survive the original cannabis strains that were not burned by American agents or bred to be more profitable.
"Impeach Earl Warren" billboard by the John Birch Society.

Rise of the Far-Right Ultras

A new book shows just how porous the dividing line has been between the far right and mainstream conservatism.
Meir Kahane

Is Kahane More Mainstream than American Jews will Admit?

A new biography explores the American roots of Meir Kahane's far-right ideology — and how the U.S. Jewish establishment embraced his beliefs.
An elderly Robert Welch sitting at a desk in a wood-paneled office.

We All Live in the John Birch Society’s World Now

In his lifetime, Robert Welch toiled in the mocked and marginal fringe. Today his ideas are the mainstream of the American right.

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