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Black-and-white illustration of men using several of Thomas Edison's inventions

A Dose of Rational Optimism

"Slouching Towards Utopia" is a rise-and-fall epic—but it is better at depicting the rise than explaining the fall.
Black and white photo of the US National Guard troops blocking off Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, as civil rights marchers pass by on March 29, 1968

American Federalism Isn’t a Boon for Democracy — It’s a Disease

The promise of US federalism is that states will be “laboratories of democracy." The reality is that states are more often laboratories of authoritarianism.
Image of Jerome Powell speaking at a conference.

Vectors of Inflation

Inflation hawks and inflation doves alike have learned the wrong lessons from the monetary policies of Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan.
Black and white photo of Berlin Wall being reinforced in 1961

Mobility and Mutability: Lessons from Two Infrastructural Icons

The Embarcadero Freeway and the Berlin Wall exemplified how the politics of mobility reflected the arrangements of power in each society.
Yellow book cover reading "The Dawn of Everything" in red text.

As Deep as it is Vast: An Introduction to "The Dawn of Everything" in Early America

A new book provides a framework that engages with “big history” or “deep history” while avoiding explanations that flirt with forms of determinism.
The Almanac Singers playing various instruments, including guitars, a banjo, and an accordion.

"Which Side Are You On, Boys..."

Watching the Ken Burns series on the U.S. and the Holocaust and thinking about American folk music.
Black and white portrait of an African American family with coats and bags ready for travel.

The Myth of Racial Reconciliation

We will never truly achieve racial justice until we, collectively, learn how to treat and heal the wound of white supremacy.
The image displays two duplicate portraits of Adam Smith. One is upside down.

The Mysteries of Adam Smith

How to understand Adam Smith’s politics.
Actor Tom Hanks and President George W. Bush stand on stage at the dedication of the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. on May 29, 2004.

Destructive Myths

Romanticized stories about the Second World War are at the heart of American exceptionalism.
Claude McKay speaking at the Kremlin, as printed in the December 1923 issue of the Crisis.

The Proletarian Poet

A new book on Claude McKay is part of an effort to place the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance within the Black radical tradition.
Wood engraving showing plantation scenes

Value and Its Sources: Slavery and the History of Art

Two new studies ask readers to think expansively about art’s involvement in a broader system of racial capitalism.
President Bill Clinton laughs after delivering remarks on welfare reform.

How the Democrats Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Free Market

In the 1990s, the New Democrats trusted corporations to do the right thing. The results were disastrous.
Book cover of "The Chinese Question The Gold Rushes and Global Politics"

Who Digs the Mines?

A new book recognizes the global character of Asian exclusion.
Store window selling shirts and ties mentioning the "Nixon Squeeze"

The Burglaries Were Never the Story

The historical insights of one era have been lost to the journalistic instincts of another.
Page in a book that reads "Humulus Lupulus No. 50 Common Hops"
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Plant of the Month: Hops

As the craft beer industry reckons with its oppressive past, it may be time to re-examine the complicated history (and present) of hops in the United States
Collage of of Stewart Brand peeking out from behind the earth.

Stewart Brand’s Dubious Futurism

What did the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog stand for?
Picture of people outside of an abandoned movie theater.

BIPOC? ¡Basta!

Time to blow the final whistle on the oppression Olympics.
Debt written on a blackboard
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How We All Got in Debt

Consumer debt shapes American lives so thoroughly that it seems eternal and immortal, but it’s actually relatively new to the financial world.
The Detroit Renewable Power waste incinerator

Dire Straits

A new history of Detroit’s struggles for clean air and water argues that municipal debt and austerity have furthered an ongoing environmental catastrophe.
Painting of Venetian Glass Workers, by John Singer Sargent, c. 1880.

Work the Lazy Way

On Annie Payson Call’s advice to tired nineteenth-century workers.
Poster with women pledging to "pay not more than top legal prices" and "accept no rationed goods without giving up ration stamps"

Politics and the Price Level

On inflation, institutions, and the governance of the price level.
Hans Frank being questioned at the Nuremberg trials, flanked by guards.

What is Left of History?

Joan Scott’s "On the Judgment of History" asks us to imagine the past without the idea of progress. But what gets left out in the process?
Cover of "The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution" by Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath.

American Social Democracy and Its Imperial Roots

This post is part of a symposium on “The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution,” a new book by Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath.
Replica of small town

Exploring the Midwest’s Forgotten Utopian Communes

The American Midwest was once a site of radical experimentation for various communitarian groups. What has become of their legacy?
Students crowded around General Logan Monument during the 1968 National Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

Are We Still Fighting the Battles of the New Left?

Revisiting post-war activist movements around the world to understand generational conflicts in the left.
Map of the Baltimore B&O railroad

The B&O Railroad From Municipal Enterprise To Private Corporation

A cautionary tale about the costs and benefits of public/private partnerships.
Illustration of John von Neumann surrounded by mathematical formulas, by Valentin Pavageau

John von Neumann Thought He Had the Answers

The father of game theory helped develop the atom bomb—and thought he could calculate when to use it.
Kwame Nkrumah, an anticolonial activist and the first Ghanaian president, pictured John F. Kennedy.

White Malice and the Racist Plunder of U.S. Empire

How American racism, capitalism, and imperialism led the U.S. to sabotage African democracies.
A political cartoon lampooning the “robber baron” monopolists’ exploitation of laborers, 1883

When Americans Liked Taxes

The idea of liberty has often seemed to mean freedom from government and its spending. But there is an alternate history, one just as foundational and defining.
Henry Louis Gates Jr.

How Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Helped Remake the Literary Canon

The scholar has changed the way Black authors get read and the way Black history gets told.

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