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Five Myths About World War I

The United States wasn't filled with isolationists, and it wasn't exactly neutral before 1917.
by Michael Kazin via Washington Post on April 6, 2017

When Pat Buchanan Tried To Make America Great Again

If you're wondering how Trump happened, all you have to do is let Pat Buchanan beguile you with a history no one else can tell.
by Sam Tanenhaus via Esquire on April 5, 2017
An illustration by Dr. Seuss of a woman reading a book about Nazis to children.

The Complicated Relevance of Dr. Seuss's Political Cartoons

The children’s author’s early works have been finding a new audience among those opposed to the "America First" policies of President Trump.
by Sophie Gilbert via The Atlantic on January 31, 2017
Sheet music cover for "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier," 1915.

"I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier"

The sound of antiwar protest in 1915.
via Voices & Visions
Henry Carey
partner

The 19th Century Thinker Who Touted Tariffs

Trump is not alone in his support for tariffs. Henry Carey also believed tariffs could help American workers.
by Christopher W. Calvo via Made By History on April 28, 2025
Black and white Washington DC.

Between Existential Fear and Isolationist Exhaustion: The United States on the Eve of the Cold War

Dean Acheson, President Truman’s prim, patrician undersecretary of state, was sitting in his office on February 21, 1947, when he received a visitor.
by Clay Risen via Literary Hub on March 21, 2025
Henry Carey.

The Thinker Who Explains Trump’s Tariffs

Henry Charles Carey is arguably the most influential economist in American history.
by Adam Rowe via Compact on March 4, 2025
A worker removes the U.S. Agency for International Development sign from its headquarters on February 7.

Seeds of Mistrust

Musk and Trump are capitalizing on decades of confusion and broken promises to lay waste to a crucial agency.
by Jonathan M. Katz via The Racket on February 12, 2025
A flour sack with a girl feeding ducks with "Nassogne, 1915" and "Merci, L'Amerique" or "Thank you, America" embroidered on it.

The Beginnings of USAID Can Be Traced to a Famine in Belgium

Trump is freezing the United States’ foreign aid agency, which grew from our relief efforts over the world’s wars and crises.
by Petula Dvorak via Retropolis on February 4, 2025
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, flanked by the U.S. and Chinese flags.

Back to the ’80s?

Trump, Xi Jinping, and the tariffs.
by Andrew Liu via n+1 on January 30, 2025

The Historical Roots of Donald Trump’s Aggressive Nationalism

What the President’s confrontations with Panama, Greenland, Canada, and Colombia suggest about his expansionist vision.
by Greg Grandin, Isaac Chotiner via The New Yorker on January 28, 2025
Donald Trump half-obscured by the American flag.

Emperor Trump’s New Map

The president who built his fan base on isolationism is pivoting to a kind of imperialism that the U.S. hasn’t seen in decades.
by Franklin Foer via The Atlantic on January 23, 2025
Ronald Reagan preparing for a broadcast on Voice of America.

Whose Ronald Reagan?

Fighting over the legacy of a conservative hero in the era of Trump.
by Susan B. Glasser via Foreign Affairs on October 22, 2024
Martin Luther King Jr. speaking to an anti-Vietnam War rally in 1967.

The Anti-War Political Tradition: An Introduction

Anti-war politics has a rich historical tradition, one that seems to be in desperate need of revival.
by Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via Foreign Exchanges on September 17, 2024
Alexander Hamilton, with superimposed map of Atlantic world.

The Return of Hamiltonian Statecraft

A grand strategy for a turbulent world.
by Walter Russell Mead via Foreign Affairs on August 20, 2024
Roll of raffle tickets labeled "National Security Priority"

How Everything Became National Security

And national security became everything.
by Daniel W. Drezner via Foreign Affairs on August 12, 2024
Thomas Nast’s 1874 elephant illustration.

What History Tells Us Might Happen to the Republican Party

The signs that precede the crumbling of American political parties and the creation of new ones.
by Lindsay M. Chervinsky via The Bulwark on July 31, 2024
Normandy American Cemetery.

Who Were the Americans Who Fought on D-Day?

A new exhibition seeks to understand the young soldiers who came ashore at Normandy.
by Kami Rice via The Bulwark on June 6, 2024
Illustration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt among tanks.

The ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ Once More

In sending military aid to Ukraine, America’s values and security interests are aligned.
by Lindsay M. Chervinsky via Bulwark+ on February 20, 2024
Woodrow Wilson.

The Poltergeist of Woodrow Wilson

We still live with the consequences of the 28th president’s fuzzy thinking.
by Sean Durns via The American Conservative on February 9, 2024
Shrapnel damage to an exterior of a home in Rehovot near Tel Aviv, Israel.
partner

The Problem With America's Reagan-Era Approach to Terrorism

While condemning terrorism should be a no-brainer, "moral clarity" has not guaranteed sound U.S. counterterrorism policy.
by Joseph Stieb via Made By History on October 26, 2023
A John Birch Society billboard in Stratton, Colorado, calls for the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren, December 1962.

The Fringe Group That Broke the GOP’s Brain — And Helped It Win Elections

The John Birch Society pushed a darker, more conspiratorial politics in the ’50s and ’60s — and looms large over today’s GOP.
by Matthew Dallek, Ian Ward via Vox on March 19, 2023
Trump speaking to a crowd; Robert Welch at a podium.

How Far-Right Movements Die

The decline of the John Birch Society offers possible strategies for containing the MAGA movement.
by Matthew Dallek via The Atlantic on March 16, 2023
Ken Burns speaking into a microphone.

Shaming Americans

Ken Burns’s "The U.S. and the Holocaust" distorts the historical record in service of a political message.
by Amity Shlaes via City Journal on January 9, 2023
Illustration of U.S. bomber droping brick to form a wall (representing sanctions).

The Folly of Sanctions

Sanctions were conceived as an alternative to war. But they may have made the world more violent.
by Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein via The New Republic on December 13, 2022
Royal Fusiliers War Memorial, 2011. Photograph by Robert Scarth.

Monuments with Mission Creep

On “all wars” memorials.
by Andrew M. Shanken via Lapham’s Quarterly on October 26, 2022
Crowds of people filling Ellis Island Immigration Station

Ken Burns Turns His Lens on the American Response to the Holocaust

Commemorating the Holocaust has become a central part of American culture, but the nation’s reaction in real time was another story.
by James McAuley via The New Yorker on September 18, 2022
In this photo provided by the U.S. Air Force, a transport plane is framed in a shattered window at the Baghdad airport on June 24, 2003.

How America Learned to Love (Ineffective) Sanctions

Over the past century, the United States came to rely ever more on economic coercion—with questionable results.
by Nicholas Mulder via Foreign Policy on January 30, 2022
Four stars with different designs

How America Fractured Into Four Parts

People in the United States no longer agree on the nation’s purpose, values, history, or meaning. Is reconciliation possible?
by George Packer via The Atlantic on June 8, 2021
19th century illustration of an airship

The Great White Reunion: On Duncan Bell’s “Dreamworlds of Race”

Could the separation of the Revolutionary War have been patched in the late 19th century? Some powerful men tried...
by Bassam Sidiki via Los Angeles Review of Books on January 26, 2021
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