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A Post-Mortem

A look at the impeachment of Warren Hastings and the nature of American power.
Four people looking at a latrine

The Paradise of the Latrine

American toilet-building and the continuities of colonial and postcolonial development.
Puerto Rican flag in tatters near smoking buildings.

How the U.S. Cashed in on Puerto Rico

In 1898, the US emerged with a profitable jewel in its colonial crown.

It Isn’t Independence Day For Everyone

If the British had won the Revolutionary War, things might be very different for Native Americans.

Dropouts Built America

When the going gets tough, the tough start something better.

Conversion and Race in Colonial Slavery

To convert was not just a matter of belief, but also a claim to power.
Map of the arms trade.

The Roots of America’s Gun Culture

How 18th-century British arms sales, the slave trade, and the Revolutionary War contributed to the mess we have today.

The Slave Revolution That Gave Birth to Haiti

A rebellion against French colonial rule in 1791 led to a new kind of society.
"Slave Ship" painting (1840) by J M W Turner. Courtesy the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Does Locke’s Entanglement With Slavery Undermine His Philosophy?

John Locke took part in administering the slave-owning colonies. Does that make him, and liberalism itself, hypocritical?

Your Revolution Was Dumb and it Filled Us With Refugees

A Canadian take on America's Revolutionary War.
Painting of Washington on horseback as his soldiers trudge through snow to Valley Forge.

The Conservative Revolution of 1776

The leaders of the Revolutionary War — and their vision for the nation — were far from revolutionary.

Black and Woke in Capitalist America: Revisiting Robert Allen’s "Black Awakening"... for New Times’ Sake

A look into neocolonialism in modern America.
rattlesnake

How the Rattlesnake Almost Became an Emblem of a Nascent America

On the centuries-long historical evolution of a serpentine symbol.
View of New Amsterdam from the 1620s.

The Dutch Roots of American Liberty

New York would never be the Puritans' austere city on a hill, yet it became America’s vibrant heart of capitalism.
Patrick Henry giving a speech to a crowd of Virginians.

What Spurred the South to Join the American Revolution?

How a dispute with a Scottish lord over westward expansion, gunpowder, and the future of enslaved labor made the southern colonies’ embrace the radical cause.
Map of Boston in 1776.

Terrains of Independence

Why was Boston and Massachusetts the site of so much early Revolutionary activity?
"Rip Van Winkle Awaking from His Long Sleep," painting by Henry Inman (1823).

Bewilderment as a Way of Understanding America’s Present – and Past

Circumstances in which people are feeling extreme disorientation are potent breeding grounds for people who are willing to exploit it in moments of crisis.
A graphic celebrating the American Bicentennial, with the original flag crossing the modern flag, and Independence Hall next to the Capitol building.

The Revolution at 250: A Conversation

What are the most important insights historians have offered about the American Revolution in the decades since the Bicentennial?
Co-founder of Moms for Liberty Tina Descovich speaks during the 2024 Joyful Warriors National Summit.

From the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s ‘Body of Liberties’ to Today’s ‘Moms for Liberty’

The "parental rights" movement, rooted in colonial theocracy, has evolved into a political force resisting racial, gender, and educational equality.
Kamala Harris waving to the audience in front of American flags.

What Does Caste Have to Do With Kamala Harris?

This election year, two women of South Asian descent—Kamala Harris and Usha Vance—take center stage. What can their identities tell us about their approach?
partner

“In the White Interest”

Many founders expressed their hope that slavery would be abolished, while simultaneously exerting themselves to defend it.
President Eisenhower sitting beside President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, September 26, 1960

The Foreign Policy Mistake the U.S. Keeps Repeating in the Middle East

In 2024, the U.S. faces some of the same challenges in the region that it did in 1954.
Aziz Rana.

Aziz Rana Wants Us to Stop Worshipping the Constitution

A conversation with the legal scholar on why it is unusual that the Constitution is core to American national identity.
Carbinari seal of a woman holding a liberty cap.

Lady Liberty in Restoration Italy? Crime, Counterfeit, and Carbonari Revolutionary Politics

Following Napoleon’s fall, international secret societies emerged promoting dissent from absolutist forms of power and sharing ideologies and iconographies.
A rally for the 1970 Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention hosted by the Black Panthers.

Democracy Was a Decolonial Project

For generations of American radicals, the path to liberation required a new constitution, not forced removal.
Sheet music for "Massa's in de Cold Ground" as sung by Christy's Minstrels.

Christy’s Minstrels Go to Great Britain

Minstrel shows were an American invention, but they also found success in the United Kingdom, where audiences were negotiating their relationships with empire.
Cover of essays by John Dickinson.

Principled Resistance and the Trouble with Tea

For what did these Americans endure such painful hardship and sacrifice? For what were they taking such a significant stand? Surely, it wasn’t just about tea!
Book cover; painting of Founding Fathers sitting around a table

The Continental Dollar: How the American Revolution Was Financed with Paper Money

Economists and historians have been telling us the wrong story about Continental currency for two centuries.
Students on a field trip threw boxes of mock tea overboard at the Boston Tea Party Museum in Boston.

The Boston Tea Party Was a Crime

Opposition to British policy was justified. Destroying 342 crates of tea worth nearly $2 million in today’s money wasn’t.
Colonists boarding the ships and dumping the tea chests.

How the Boston Tea Party's 'Destruction of the Tea' Changed American History

Attacks on private property enraged Colonial leaders and the British public, hardening positions and ruling out compromise.

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