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An English revolutionary takes the crown off of the head of the dead King Charles I.

What Happens When You Kill Your King

After the English Revolution—and an island’s experiment with republicanism—a genuine restoration was never in the cards.
Statue of Jefferson in front of white columns of building facade

The Decline of Church-State Separation

The author of new book explains the fraught and turbulent relationship between religion and government in the U.S.

American Revolutionary Geographies Online

Discover the stories, spaces, and people of the American Revolutionary War era through maps, interpretive essays, and interactives.
Black and white drawing of early 19th century naval vessels.

The Insurers’ Wars

When Thomas Jefferson’s administration was debating whether to declare war against Britain, it came up against America’s wealthy and influential marine underwriters.
A painting by Alfred Touchemolin showing French army recruits being inoculated with cowpox to protect them from smallpox, circa 1895

The Deep Roots of Vaccine Hesitancy

Understanding the battle over immunization—from the pre-Victorian era onward—between public health and the people may help in treating anti-vax sentiment.
Painting of: Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt, 1867, by Jean-Leon Gerome.

What Is the Relationship Between Democracy and Authoritarianism?

The Age of Revolution inaugurated a new era in modern history defined not only by new democratic institutions but also by despots and charismatic leaders.
Painting by Jean-Baptiste Oudry, "Africa: A European Merchant Bartering with a Black Chief"

Inventing the Science of Race

In 1741, Bordeaux’s Royal Academy of Sciences held an essay contest searching for the origin of “blackness.” The results help us see how Enlightenment thinkers justified slavery.
Le Marron Incconu, a statue of an enslaved man with a conch shell, dedicated to the abolishment of slavery.

Slave Rebellions and Mutinies Shaped the Age of Revolution

Several recent books offer a more complete, bottom-up picture of the role sailors and Black political actors played in making the Atlantic world.
Tyler Stovall and his book

The History of Freedom Is a History of Whiteness

A conversation about whether or not the legacy of liberty can break away from racial exclusion and domination.
Timothy McVeigh

What We’ve Learned: Pondering Usable History

We must be cautious of the inclination to find a “usable history” that proves those points we want to prove, that reinforces the lessons we want reinforced.

When New Money Meets Old Bloodlines: On America’s Gilded Age Dollar Princesses

The intersecting lives of robber barons and floundering French aristocrats.
A colorized photo of migrant children in 1942.

How to Interpret Historical Analogies

They’re good for kickstarting political debate but analogies with the past are often ahistorical and should be treated with care.

Will We Still Be American After Democracy Dies?

Is being "political" the central force in our identities?

Our First Authoritarian Crackdown

A new book persuasively argues that the Federalists’ attempt to squash opposition and the free flow of ideas was even more nefarious than we thought.

The Fall and Rise of the Guillotine

Ideologues of left and right have learned to stop worrying and love rhetorical violence.

Did an Illuminati Conspiracy Theory Help Elect Thomas Jefferson?

The 1800 election shows there is nothing new about conspiracy theories, and that they really take hold when we don’t trust each other.
New Yorkers including Hasidic Jews walk by an outdoor tent erected as a waiting area for an urgent care clinic.
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Deep Political Fissures May Worsen the Coronavirus Outbreak

If partisans see problems and potential solutions through a political lens, it will weaken our response.

George Washington’s Twilight Years

A review of "Washington’s End: The Final Years and Forgotten Struggle," by Jonathan Horn.

The Contagious Revolution

For a long time, European historians paid little attention to the extraordinary series of events that now goes by the name of the Haitian Revolution.

The Remembered Past

On the beginnings of our stories—and the history of who owns them.

Progress in Play: Board Games and the Meaning of History

Throughout the history of civilization, board games have been used as propaganda to support ideologies and lifestyles.

Where Does Truth Fit into Democracy?

In modern democracies, who gets to determine what counts as truth—an elite of experts or the people as a whole?
French elites at an eighteenth-century erotic seance.

Mesmerising Science: The Franklin Commission and the Modern Clinical Trial

Benjamin Franklin, magnetic trees, and erotically-charged séances.

How Americans Described Evil Before Hitler

Commentators compared the Nazi leader to Napoleon, Philip of Macedon, and Nebuchadnezzar.
Trump glares at Trudeau at the G7 meeting.
partner

Trump Has Ignored the Worst Chapter of U.S.-Canada Relations

The War of 1812 holds lessons about the costly error of tariffs — not the threat of Canadians.
Thomas Jefferson's library at the Library of Congress.

Mr. Jefferson’s Books & Mr. Madison’s War

The burning of Washington presented an opportunity for Jefferson’s books to educate the nation by becoming a national library.

On Prejudice

An 18th-century creole slaveholder invented the idea of 'racial prejudice’ to defend diversity among a slaveowning elite.
Painting of the signing of the Constitution.

The Original Theory of Constitutionalism

The debate between "originalism" and the "living constitution" rages on. What does history say?
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Racism Has Always Driven U.S. Policy Toward Haiti

On Haiti, Donald Trump sounds a lot like Thomas Jefferson.

Why Haiti Should be at the Centre of the Age of Revolution

Haiti, not the US or France, was where the assertion of human rights reached its climax in the Age of Revolution.

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