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A policeman stoops down next to a roulette wheel and writes on a clipboard.

The Engines and Empires of New York City Gambling

As plans are laid for a new casino, one can trace, through four figures, a history of rivalry and excess, rife with collisions of character and crime.
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on August 4, 2025
Octopus like arms, holding a stack of newspapers.

The Birth of the Attention Economy

The rise of the cheap, daily newspaper in the 19th century remade how Americans engaged with the world.
by Jake Lundberg via The Atlantic on July 31, 2025
Black and white photograph of Claude McKay

Letters from Claude McKay

Correspondence about writing, travel, and friendship, from 1926 through 1929.
by Claude McKay via The Paris Review on July 25, 2025
Thomas Kinkade

The Painter of the Right

Thomas Kinkade’s paintings show conservatives a world they have already won.
by Sarah Jones via Dissent on July 16, 2025
Images of historical figures including Bejamin Franklin and Albert Einstein are overlaid on a green and white background.

Who’ll Be in Trump’s Hero Garden? There Are a Few Surprises.

The list of nearly 250 includes the famous, the obscure and, in some cases, the intentionally controversial.
by Bonnie Berkowitz, Hannah Dormido, Kati Perry via Washington Post on July 15, 2025
Painting of the Bay of San Francisco, by Eduard Hildebrandt.

Mark Twain, the Californian

In 1864 San Francisco, Twain found hardship, Bohemia, and his voice—transforming from local reporter to rising literary force.
by Ben Tarnoff via Lapham’s Quarterly on July 4, 2025
Abandoned church in Coaldale, Pennsylvania, with an American flag hanging upside down over its door.

The Decline and Fall of Christianity in America

If we imagine religion as a technology, argues Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith, we can better see the cause of its decline: obsolescence.
by Daniel N. Gullotta via The Bulwark on July 1, 2025
A group of workers in hard hats walk through the shallow water of one of the Panama Canal's locks.

‘The Canal Is Ours’

Trump’s threats to take control of the Panama Canal have precipitated a struggle over the country’s sovereignty.
by Miriam Pensack via New York Review of Books on June 28, 2025
Irving Thalberg and his wife, with Louis Mayer.

The Wizard Behind Hollywood’s Golden Age

How Irving Thalberg helped turn M-G-M into the world’s most famous movie studio—and gave the film business a new sense of artistry and scale.
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on June 9, 2025
Jewish activists hold Passover Seder outside ICE headquarters in New York City to demand an end to Israel's war on Gaza.

The Past, Present, and Future of Left Jewish Identity

Jewish-led Palestine solidarity demonstrations are part of a long history of Jewish identity being bound up in leftist politics.
by Benjamin Balthaser, Shane Burley via Jacobin on June 8, 2025
A student protest at Gallaudet University.

A Striking Moment in American Activism

A new documentary revisits a pivotal week at Gallaudet University in 1988.
by John Hendrickson via The Atlantic on May 23, 2025
The all seeing eye reveals that the American flag is melting.

America’s Broken Commonwealth

The nation’s founding myth was based on faith and solidarity – but it also contained the roots of today’s democratic crisis.
by Rowan Williams via New Statesman on May 22, 2025
Avocados

Why Are We So Obsessed With Avocados?

Why are avocados everywhere?
by Sarah Allaback, Monique F. Parsons via Literary Hub on May 21, 2025
Old man and young boy.

The Perils of Generational Thinking

By assigning personal attributes to birth cohort, generationism tends to undermine personal responsibility.
by Richard Gunderman via Law & Liberty on May 16, 2025
John C. Calhoun

The Prelude to the Civil War

“Only two states wanted a civil war—Massachusetts and South Carolina.”
by Hunter DeRensis via The American Conservative on May 5, 2025
Lin Taiyi takes dictation from her father, Dr. Lin Yutang, on a typewriter he invented.

Lost and Found: The Unexpected Journey of the MingKwai Typewriter

Its ingenious design inspired generations of language-processing technology, but only one prototype was made and had long been assumed lost.
by Yangyang Chen via Made In China Journal on May 2, 2025
The words "the world you were born in no longer exists" covering Trump's eyes.

The Present Crisis and the End of the Long '90s

On the constitutional settlement that governed America from the end of the Volcker Shock in 1982 to the re-election of Donald Trump in 2024.
by Samantha Hancox-Li via Liberal Currents on April 24, 2025
City workers get their lunch at the Horn & Hardart automat in New York City, ca 1940.

Choice and Its Discontents

Today no one on either side of the political spectrum would present themselves as an enemy of choice. Sophia Rosenfeld exposes the complex legacy of this idea.
by Sophia Rosenfeld, Daniel Falcone via Jacobin on April 22, 2025
Person sitting on the ground, head in hands.

Still Pursuing Happiness

The United States fares badly on the World Happiness Report. Who cares?
by Reuven Brenner via Law & Liberty on April 22, 2025
Collage of magazine text and outdoor images.

The Decline of Outside Magazine Is Also the End of a Vision of the Mountain West

After its purchase by a tech entrepreneur, the publication is now a shadow of itself.
by Rachel Monroe via The New Yorker on April 18, 2025
Cracked marble statue head.

Looks Like Mussolini, Quacks Like Mussolini

The National Garden of American Heroes represents a dangerous shift in values—from inquiry to reverence.
by Gal Beckerman via The Atlantic on April 15, 2025
A drawing of human eyes behind a variety of consumer goods, including milk, shoes, and toothpaste.

The Surprising History of the Ideology of Choice

How endless options became our only option.
by Andrew Lanham via The New Republic on April 11, 2025
Green light in a dark sky.

On My Grandfather’s Novel: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gatsby" at 100

Reflections on the literary legacy of a timeless American novel.
by Eleanor Lanahan via Literary Hub on April 7, 2025
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

‘It Reminds You of a Fascist State’: Smithsonian Institution Braces for Trump Rewrite of US History

Normally staid historians sound alarm at authoritarian grasping for control of the premier US museum complex.
by David Smith via The Guardian on March 30, 2025
Neil Postman in front of a collage of the cover of "Amusing Ourselves to Death."

The One Book That Explains Our Current Era Was Written 40 Years Ago

NYT pundits and NBA writers alike can't stop recommending this four-decade-old book.
by Laura J. Miller via Slate on March 25, 2025
Six hands holding a sword with an eagle on the hilt.

The Democratic Promise of Manifest Destiny

All Americans with some education are aware that Manifest Destiny was one of the Bad Things in our past and very few know any more about it than that.
by Hamilton Craig via Compact on March 25, 2025
A preacher preaches to Union soldiers in the Civil War.

Confession Eclipsed

On the rise and fall of confession in American Catholicism, and what the demography of today's Catholics says about the future of the faith.
by James F. Keating via First Things on March 19, 2025

The Sum of Our Wisdom

We are told that we are a Calvinist culture, which means very little, and none of that good.
by Marilynne Robinson via The Hedgehog Review on March 18, 2025
Cartoon of well-dressed arm holding a lit match

The Gilded Age Never Ended

Plutocrats, anarchists, and what Henry James grasped about the romance of revolution.
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on February 24, 2025
Protestors use the celebrated Hamilton lyric, “Immigrants: We Get the Job Done” to protest the first inauguration of President Donald Trump.

“The Premise of Our Founding”: Immigration and Popular Mythmaking

On the tension between celebratory rhetoric and restrictive policy surrounding immigration.
by Connie Thomas via The Panorama on February 24, 2025
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