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Martin Howard, left, and Stephen Hopkins came to opposing conclusions about their colonial British identities.

Two Colonists Had Similar Identities, But Only One Felt Compelled to Remain Loyal

What might appear to be common values about shared identities can serve not as a bridge but a wedge.
Unionists in East Tennessee Swear Loyalty to the Union Flag in 1862.

Remembering Southern Unionists

Confederate monuments helped to erase the history of those white and black southerners who remained loyal and were willing to give their lives to save the United States.
An American soldier guards a Japanese internment camp at Manzanar, Calif., on May 23, 1943.
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Is it Possible to Condemn One Empire Without Upholding Another?

The danger of making wars into moral crusades.
Photo of Union commanders.

The Anti-Lee

George Henry Thomas, southerner in blue.

Trump’s Loyalty Fixation Recalls One of the US’s Most Disastrous Presidencies

What we can learn about the current moment from Congress' efforts to impeach Andrew Johnson.
William Buckley stands behind a podium, surrounded by a throng of people, and waves.

The Real Bill Buckley

Even some liberals toasted William F. Buckley Jr. as a patrician gentleman. A long-awaited new biography corrects that record.
The all seeing eye reveals that the American flag is melting.

America’s Broken Commonwealth

The nation’s founding myth was based on faith and solidarity – but it also contained the roots of today’s democratic crisis.
Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn.

Blacklists and Civil Liberties

On the Second Red Scare and the lessons that it can provide for us today.
Drawing of the fight between two congressional representatives titled "Congressional pugilists," 1798.

Alien Enemies, Alien Friends, and the Concept of “Allegiance”

With controversy raging over the Alien Enemies Act, how should we understand the concept it invoked?

How the Red Scare Reshaped American Politics

At its height, the political crackdown felt terrifying and all-encompassing. What can we learn from how the movement unfolded—and from how it came to an end?
A propaganda poster of an American flag on fire and white American citizens struggling against Communist officials, with the caption: "Is this tomorrow? America under Communism!"

What Happened the Last Time a President Purged the Bureaucracy

The impact can linger not just for years but decades.

The End of Resistance History

What was the liberal #Resistance "Twitterstorian"? And what did commentators like Heather Cox Richardson morph into during the Biden years?
Kendrick Lamar in the spotlight performing a concert.

Bad Beef

Rap beef is form of capitalist accumulation that enriches artists—and, most of all, the corporate suits that run their record labels.
Richard Nixon at a press conference pointing at a reporter.

Nixon’s Official Acts Against His Enemies List Led to a Bipartisan Impeachment Effort

An enemies list isn’t a weapon against ‘the Deep State.’ It was a tool Richard Nixon used to create a deep state of his own.
Black and white photo of Charles B. Warren from 1924.

The Last Time the Senate Rejected a President's Cabinet Nominee of the Same Party

It hasn't happened for 100 years.
Supreme Court justices William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, and Owen J. Roberts at the White House.

FDR’s Compliant Justices

The Supreme Court’s deference to FDR during World War II resulted in unjustifiable ethical breaches.
Davy Crockett monument in Texas.

The Political Example of Davy Crockett

As a congressman, Davy Crockett found ways to navigate populist upheaval and maintain his own independence.
A protest during a sit-down strike in Detroit.

Red Weather Vanes

Maurice Isserman’s history of American communism documents both its achievements and its fatal obeisance to Soviet doctrines.
NATO leaders in the 1950s sitting together at a conference.

Ill-Suited to Reality: NATO’s Delusions

It has suddenly become popular to cast NATO as the first benign military alliance in history, without concealed politics.
Map of West Florida.

From Subjects To Citizens

The West Florida revolt in the Age of Revolutions.
A line crew at work in the Manzanar camp.

A Portrait of Japanese America, in the Shadow of the Camps

An essential new volume collects accounts of Japanese incarceration by patriotic idealists, righteous firebrands, and downtrodden cynics alike.
A collage of the Eugene V. Debbs museum and advertisements for his presidential campaign from prison inside the museums collection.

‘Unless Jesus Christ Was Running’: In MAGA Country, Post-Verdict Trump is Still the Answer

Eugene Debs ran for president from prison. His former bellwether county — and museum — both hold lessons for Trump’s campaign.

Friends and Enemies

Marty Peretz and the travails of American liberalism.
A hallway in the Greenbriar bunker, lined with steel and cement walls

The Town That Kept Its Nuclear Bunker a Secret for Three Decades

The people of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, helped keep the Greenbrier resort's bunker—designed to hold the entirety of Congress—hidden for 30 years.

The Annotated Oppenheimer

Celebrated and damned as the “father of the atomic bomb,” theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer lived a complicated scientific and political life.
African American factory worker assembling an automobile engine.

How the UAW Broke Ford’s Stranglehold Over Black Detroit

The UAW's patient organizing cemented an alliance that would bear fruit for decades.
Movie poster for "Bad Day at Black Rock."

Buried in the Sand

On John Sturges’s “Bad Day at Black Rock” and Japanese America.
J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer, Nullified and Vindicated

The inventor of the atomic bomb, the subject of Christopher Nolan’s new film, was the chief celebrity victim of the national trauma known as McCarthyism.
"The Negro in the American Revolution" cover

2026 and Black Americans: A Conversation about Benjamin Quarles

The long-term impact of Quarles’s work.
Eugene Debs mug shots at the US Penitentiary in Atlanta.

War Fever

The crusade against civil liberties during World War I.

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