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Prophets of War

Telegraph operators were the first to know news of the Civil War.
by Jason Phillips via Lapham’s Quarterly on October 23, 2018

Infiltrating the Left

The FBI has long tried to destroy socialist organizations, but its actions aren't limited to surveillance.
by Aaron J. Leonard, Micah Uetricht via Jacobin on August 19, 2018

Turncoat: Benedict Arnold and the Crisis of American Liberty

A review of Stephen Brumwell's most recent book.
by John Knight via Journal of the American Revolution on July 2, 2018

Explaining the 'Mystery' of Numbers Stations

The stations' broadcasts have been attributed to aliens and Cold War relics, but they actually are coded intelligence messages.
by Maris Goldmanis via War on the Rocks on May 24, 2018

Russians Were Once Banned From a Third of the U.S.

Soviet ban? What Soviet ban?
by Greg Miller via National Geographic on March 26, 2018
The April 1966 cover of “Ramparts," featuring a caricature of Madame Nhu dressed as a Michigan State University cheerleader

The University That Launched a CIA Front Operation in Vietnam

A Vietnamese politician and an American academic led Michigan State University into a nation-building experiment and pulled America deeper into war.
by Eric Scigliano via Politico Magazine on March 25, 2018
Catalog, in red and black, for Drum & Spear Bookstore, depicting silhouettes of three people with afro hairstyles.

The FBI's War on Black-Owned Bookstores

At the height of the Black Power movement, the Bureau focused on the unlikeliest of public enemies: black independent booksellers.
by Joshua Clark Davis via The Atlantic on February 19, 2018

Operation Mongoose: The Story of America's Efforts to Overthrow Castro

And how they helped seal America’s fate in Vietnam.
by Max Boot via The Atlantic on January 5, 2018

In 1947, A High-Altitude Balloon Crash Landed in Roswell. The Aliens Never Left

Despite its persistence in popular culture, extraterrestrial life owes more to the imagination than reality.
by Donovan Webster via Smithsonian on July 5, 2017

Six Nazi Spies Were Executed in D.C. White Supremacists Gave Them a Memorial

The memorial to the men sat in a field until 2010 when officials took a fork lift to it.
by John Woodrow Cox via Retropolis on June 23, 2017
Security camera

Credit Bureaus Were the NSA of the 19th Century

They were enormous, tech-savvy, and invasive in their methods—and they enlisted Abraham Lincoln into their ranks.
by Sarah Jeong via The Atlantic on April 21, 2016
Capitol Bombing Damage 1915

Terrorism Hits Home in 1915: U.S. Capitol Bombing

In a span of less than 12 hours a German college professor set off a bomb in the U.S. Capitol & assaulted J.P. Morgan Jr. at his home on Long Island.
by Mark Jones via Boundary Stones on June 22, 2015
Crowd with hands up at World Youth Festival

When the C.I.A. Duped College Students

Inside a famous Cold War deception.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on March 16, 2015
A drawing of a hippopotamus with its mouth open wide.

American Hippopotamus

A bracing and eccentric epic of espionage and hippos.
by Jon Mooallem via The Atavist on November 28, 2013
National Security Agency headquarters.

They Know Much More Than You Think

US intelligence agencies seem to have adopted Orwell’s idea of doublethink—“to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies.”
by James Bamford via New York Review of Books on August 15, 2013
A woman named Mary Bowser.

The Spy Photo That Fooled NPR, the U.S. Army Intelligence Center, and Me

A story of a mistaken identity reveals a lot about the history of black women in America, the challenges of understanding the past, and who we are today.
by Lois Leveen via The Atlantic on June 27, 2013
Young boy holding the Communist sickle and hammer, in black and white

Revisions in Red

A scholar wrestles with the legacy of her grandfather, onetime leader of America’s Communist Party.
by Laura Browder via The Chronicle of Higher Education on November 19, 2012
An American flag with the stars replaced by Chiquita logos and the stripes containing the words "The United Fruit Co. in Guatemala"

Watch Out For the Top Banana

Edward Bernays and the colonial adventures of the United Fruit Company.
by Larry Tye via Cabinet on September 4, 2006
Donald Trump and the presidential seal in an empty theater.

The Hoax that Spawned an Age of American Conspiracism

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are just the latest populists to weaponise fears of a sinister “deep state”.
by Phil Tinline via New Statesman on April 2, 2025
Senator Joseph McCarthy speaking into microphones.

Newly Declassified Documents Reveal the Untold Stories of the Red Scare

In his latest book, journalist and historian Clay Risen explores how the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy upended the nation.
by Sara Georgini, Clay Risen via Smithsonian on April 1, 2025
Painting titled "Repulse of Leslie at the North Bridge".

Was This Little-Known Standoff the Real Start of the American Revolution?

On February 26, 1775, residents of Salem, Massachusetts, banded together to force the British to withdraw from their town in Leslie’s Retreat.
by Robert Pushkar via Smithsonian on February 26, 2025
partner

The Media Spawned McCarthyism. Now It's Happening Again

Some of today's most influential political figures also won power through their willingness to say things that capture media attention.
by A. Brad Schwartz via Made By History on February 9, 2025
A satellite orbiting the Earth.

Inside the CIA’s Decades-Long Climate “Spy” Campaign

How a top-secret satellite surveillance program accidentally documented climate change.
by Rachel Santarsiero via 3 Quarks Daily on February 7, 2025
Storefront of Nazi-owned "Aryan Book Store" called "Silver Shirt Literature."

Bigoted Bookselling: When the Nazis Opened a Propaganda Bookstore in Los Angeles

On Hitler’s attempt to win Americans over to his cause.
by Evan Friss via Literary Hub on August 21, 2024
Watergate hotel
partner

The Little-Known Group Behind Watergate's Dirty Tricks

A college group pioneered the dirty tricks that led to Watergate. Fifty years later, the tactics still poison politics.
by Jonathan van Harmelen via Made By History on August 8, 2024
Harriet Tubman.

The Radical Faith of Harriet Tubman

A new book conveys in dramatic detail what America’s Moses did to help abolish slavery. Another addresses the love of God and country that helped her do so.
by Casey N. Cep via The New Yorker on June 24, 2024
Hands manipulating the earth like a Rubik's cube.

When the C.I.A. Messes Up

Its agents are often depicted as malevolent puppet masters—or as bumbling idiots. The truth is even less comforting.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The New Yorker on June 10, 2024
Man and woman testing buttons on machine at Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory

Tomorrow People

For the entire 20th century, it had felt like telepathy was just around the corner. Why is that especially true now?
by Roger Luckhurst via Aeon on June 3, 2024
An FBI insignia on an officer's jacket.

To Fix the FBI, Abolish It

A new study of the national security apparatus finds the existing Bureau incompatible with republican government.
by Phillip Linderman via The American Conservative on May 25, 2024
Still from Pretty Poison (1968).

The All-American Crack-Up in 1960s Hollywood Cinema

Starting in the 1960s, more and more Hollywood films depicted an increasingly violent and alienated American society quickly losing its mind.
by Eileen Jones via Jacobin on May 24, 2024
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