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A train yard in Montgomery, Alabama, 1897

The Ballad of Railroad Bill

The story of Morris Slater, aka Railroad Bill, prompts us to ask how the legend of the "American outlaw" changes when race is involved.
The original members of the hip-hop group De La Soul.

Hip-Hop at Fifty: An Elegy

A generation is still dying younger than it should—this time, of “natural causes.”
Graphic including images of Percy Julian.

Percy Julian and the False Promise of Exceptionalism

Reflecting on the trailblazing chemist’s fight for dignity and the myths we tell about our scientific heroes.
A crowd gathers in the Florida Capitol with “Stop the Black Attack” signs.
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Conservatives Want To Control What Kids Learn, But It May Backfire

Conservatives want to make students patriotic. Instead, they exacerbate historical illiteracy.
Yellow house where George Washington stayed while in Barbados.

George Washington in Barbados?

How the Caribbean colony contributed to America's fight for independence.
Samuel Adams.

Hanged on a Venerable Elm

The shadow of Samuel Adams, a crafty and government-wary revolutionary, lingers over the January 6 Capitol insurrection.
Douglas R. Stringfellow reading a statement before the press.

The Congressman Who ‘Embellished’ His Résumé Long Before George Santos

In the 1950's, Rep. Douglas Stringfellow was a promising young congressman with an incredible World War II story. Then the truth came out.
Scrapbook style image of Bruce Springsteen, washed in red tones, playing guitar in front of a black-and-white background of an empty landscape

Forty Years of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska’

Decades after its release, the haunted highways and haunted characters of the Boss’s largely acoustic masterpiece still haunt the American psyche.
Statue of Liberty's torch.

Why the Philosophers Libertarians Love Always Come Out Worse for Wear

Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek have been through the wringer.
Chuck Norris as Sergeant Cordell Walker in Walker: Texas Ranger.

Walkers and Lone Rangers: How Pop Culture Shaped the Texas Rangers Mythology

Texas’s elite police force has long played the hero in film and television, although the reality is far more complex.
Shadowy photograph of two people standing in front of statue of Lincoln in Lincoln Memorial

In Jon Meacham’s Biography, Lincoln Is a Guiding Light For Our Times

The famous historian makes the claim that the demigods of American historical mythology can help us carve paths through our forbidding 21st-century wilderness.
Mount Rushmore with painted crowd behind it

A Usable Past for a Post-American Nation

We are living through a time when we cannot take our shared identity—and therefore our shared stories—for granted.
Portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1894, by Curt Stoeving.

Nietzsche’s Quarrel with History

As much as we may wish otherwise, history gives us few reasons to believe that its moral arc bends toward justice.
Kyle Rittenhouse waves to cheering fans as he appears at a panel discussion at a Turning Point USA America Fest event on Dec. 20, 2021.
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Bernhard Goetz and the Roots of Kyle Rittenhouse’s Celebrity on the Right

Why vigilante violence appeals politically.
1973 Time magazine article entitled "The Watergate Three" with a photo of Woodward, Bernstein, and Sussman.

All the Newsroom’s Men

How one-third of “The Watergate Three” got written out of journalism history.
When Tom Cruise starred in Top Gun in 1986, it wasn’t just a box office bonanza — it was a boon to the US military. Paramount Pictures

Hollywood and the Pentagon: A Love Story

For the Pentagon, films like "Top Gun: Maverick" are more than just a movie.
A photograph of John Brown and scraps of his writing.

The Irrevocable Step

John Brown and the historical novel.
Brooklyn Dodgers infielder Jackie Robinson in uniform, circa 1945.

Jackie Robinson’s Last Fight

As baseball celebrates the 75th anniversary of Robinson’s breaking the color line, it’s worth remembering a man at odds with his own myth.
Men engaged in the various stages of making glass bottles in London, 1888.

Workers Have Been Fighting Automation Ever Since Capitalism Began

Automation didn’t start in the age of robots and microchips, but can be traced back to the late 19th century glass industry and its skilled glass workers.
Painting of George Washington in New York, 1783, surrounded by a crowd.

The Many American Revolutions

Woody Holton’s "Liberty is Sweet" charts not only the contest with Great Britain over “home rule” but also the internal struggle over who should rule at home. 
Painting of people on a fishing boat

A Cosmic Lie

A conversation about "Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World."
Illustration of Abraham Lincoln getting ready to give a speech.

Re-imagining the Great Emancipator

How shall a generation know its story, if it will know no other?
MLK at microphone

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King

The King holiday is more than a time for reflection. It’s really a time for provocation.
Billboard claiming MLK was a Republican

The Uses and Abuses of the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Politics have diluted King's dream.
An engraving of the American pioneer and folk hero, Daniel Boone.

Daniel Boone: A Frontiersman in Full

The life of Daniel Boone underlines how the North America of the era was a welter of conflict among and between natives and Europeans.
"American Independent Inventors" book cover

No Geniuses Here

A new book challenges the notion that independent inventors were shunted aside in the 20th century by anonymous scientists in corporate research laboratories.
Illustration of Henry David Thoreau and Lidian Emerson looking into each other's eyes

Thoreau in Love

The writer had a deep bond with his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. But he also had a profound connection with Emerson’s wife.
Portraits of the top 50 individuals in US public monuments - mostly white men

National Monument Audit

A massive assessment of the nation's current monument landscape, posing questions about common knowledge and debunking misperceptions within public memory.
Luther Martin
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For Constitution Day, Let's Toast the Losers of the Convention

Anti-federalist Luther Martin's agenda failed at the Constitutional Convention, but his criticisms of the Founders may still resonate with us today.

Remembered for the Wrong Reason?

Which personality of the American Revolution or the founding era is remembered for the wrong reasons, and why?

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