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Collage of Samuel Huntington, his essay "The Clash of Civilizations," and 21st-century political figure.

Samuel Huntington’s Great Idea Was Totally Wrong

His “Clash of Civilizations” essay in Foreign Affairs turned 30 this year. It was provocative, influential, manna for the modern right—and completely and utterly not true.
by Jordan Michael Smith via The New Republic on October 19, 2023
Ronald Squire, Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge.

Against Race Essentialism

Black identity is a reality, not an idea.
by Tomiwa Owolade via New Statesman on May 15, 2023
Eastern State Penitentiary in Pennsylvania.

Who Shall and Shall Not Have a Place in the World?

Can the racialist and eugenicist roots of statistics can be cordoned off from “proper” science?
by Lily Hu via Los Angeles Review of Books on February 13, 2025
Table of illustrations of various diverse human faces from "Ethnographic Tableau."

Baffled by Human Diversity

Confused 17th-century Europeans argued that human groups were separately created, a precursor to racist thought today.
by Jacob Zellmer via Aeon on July 8, 2024
An old journal with cursive writing on the pages

Slanting the History of Handwriting

Whatever writing is today, it is not self-evident. But writing by hand did not simply continue to “advance” until it inevitably began to erode.
by Sonja Drimmer via Public Books on August 9, 2023
Goldfish bowl superimposed on close-up of eye.

Queer History Now!

“Queer” has experienced a loss of meaning and a curdling of political potential. To reinvigorate it, we need a new approach to history.
by Ben Miller via The Baffler on June 7, 2023
Governor George Wallace stands defiant at the University of Alabama.

A View of American History That Leads to One Conclusion

For many historians today, the present is forever trapped in the past and defined by the worst of it.
by George Packer via The Atlantic on March 8, 2023
A phot taken by Corkey Lee of an Asian woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty in front of a diamond store with a Statue of Liberty mural.

Corky Lee and the Work of Seeing

Lee's life and work suggested that Asian American identity did not possess—and did not need—any underlying reality beyond solidarity.
by Ken Chen via n+1 on January 25, 2023
Cracked wall.

The Danger of a Single Origin Story

The 1619 Project and contested foundings.
by Emily Sclafani via Perspectives on History on February 9, 2022

History As End

1619, 1776, and the politics of the past.
by Matthew Karp via Harper’s on June 8, 2021

Here Is a Human Being

The Spotify and Ancestry partnership proposes to entertain users based on the narrowest possible conception of who they are.
by Cam Scott via Popula on September 27, 2018

The Soviet Anthology of “Negro Poetry”

In the 1930s, Soviet leaders decided that black American authors could teach Russians “to write social poetry.”
by Jennifer Wilson via The Paris Review on May 15, 2018

Are Our Genes Really Our Fate?

DNA’s visual culture and the construction of genetic truth.
by Kathleen Pierce via Nursing Clio on April 24, 2018

Between Obama and Coates

Because both thinkers neglect political economy, they end up promoting a politics that is responsible for the nation's growing inequality.
by Touré F. Reed via Catalyst on March 12, 2018

Bellatrix and the American Revolution

240 years after the American Revolution, debates over how to interpret the conflict and its leaders continue.
by Alex Cacioppo via Public Books on March 9, 2015
Scene of prehistoric game hunters.

Prehistory’s Original Sin

We need more than genealogies to know who we are, and who we ought to become.
by Connor Grubaugh via The Hedgehog Review on May 6, 2025
A drawing of two people speaking with a third person's head listening between them.

Diverging Majority

Demography has not managed to be destiny in the past half-century—but predictions of a millenarian shift have not lost their appeal.
by Rick Perlstein, Geraldo Cadava via The Baffler on September 3, 2024
A women's suffrage demonstration with banners on the steps of the US Capitol in 1917.

Feminism in the Dock

Can (and should) conservatives reclaim feminism from the radicals?
by Brenda M. Hafera via Law & Liberty on June 26, 2023
Cliff Joseph's art, Blackboard, 1969. One adult and one young Black person stand in front of a blackboard.

The Long War on Black Studies

It would be a mistake to think of the current wave of attacks on “critical race theory” as a culture war. This is a political battle.
by Robin D. G. Kelley via New York Review of Books on June 17, 2023
W. E. B. Du Bois, 1958

Another Side of W.E.B. Du Bois

A conversation on Du Bois' perspective on empire and democracy, the development of his anti-imperial thought, and his vision for transnational solidarity.
by Adom Getachew, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, Jennifer Pitts via The Nation on May 10, 2023
Collage of DNA sequence and scientists, reading "Your Child's IQ: What Role Does Heredity Play?"

Losing the Genetic Lottery

How did a field meant to reclaim genetics from Nazi abuses wind up a haven for race science?
by Padmini Raghunath via Distillations on April 6, 2023
Young girl triplets wearing identical clothes sitting on a bed.

Posed Riddles

Seeing through empathy with Diane Arbus.
by Max Norman via The Drift on February 28, 2023
Painting of a plantation.

The Old South Shall Rise Again

On the economic system of Silicon Valley.
by Victor Davis Hanson via The New Criterion on August 24, 2022
Spectrum of color from red to blue.

A Little Spectrum-y

What the autism diagnosis says about you.
by Emer Lucey via The Drift on January 20, 2022
John Quincy Adams giving speech at U.S. House of Representatives
partner

Why a Culture War Over Critical Race Theory? Consider the Pro-Slavery Congressional "Gag Rule"

In 1836, the House passed a resolution that automatically tabled all petitions on slavery without a hearing.
by Frank Palmeri, Ted Wendelin via HNN on June 6, 2021
Still from animated TV show Big Mouth

The Messy Politics of Black Voices—and “Black Voice”—in American Animation

Cartoons have often been considered exempt from the country’s prejudices. In fact, they form a genre built on the marble and mud of racial signification.
by Lauren Michele Jackson via The New Yorker on June 30, 2020

The Haunting of Drums and Shadows

On the stories and landscapes the Federal Writers’ Project left unexplored.
by Sam Worley via Lapham’s Quarterly on May 11, 2020
Hands waving US and pride flags during the National LGBT Anniversary Ceremony in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 4, 2015.
partner

How Eugenics Gave Rise To Modern Homophobia

The roots of anti-gay attitudes lay in white supremacy.
by Hugh Ryan via Made By History on May 28, 2019
Timor residents in traditional dress look at a National Geographic photographer demonstrating his camera.

National Geographic Has Always Depended on Exoticism

With its race issue, the magazine is trying a different direction. Can it escape its past?
by Rebecca Onion, John Edwin Mason via Slate on March 14, 2018
Marlo Thomas holding hands with children.

'Free To Be You and Me' 40th Anniversary: How Did a Kids Album By a Bunch of Feminists Change Everything?

Forty years ago this fall, a bunch of feminists released an album. They wanted to change … everything.
by Dan Kois via Slate on October 22, 2012

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