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The Socialist Origins of Public Defense

The right to public defense wasn’t granted by elites. It was won by socialist-led mass movements.
Pride parade passes the Stonewall Inn.
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Stonewall's Legacy and Kwame Anthony Appiah's Misuse of History

The New York Times should have done a better job fact-checking Appiah’s essay. Philosophy may be allegorical. History isn’t.

‘The Lehman Trilogy’ and Wall Street’s Debt to Slavery

If the play holds up a mirror to our moment, it is by registering slavery in a peripheral glance only to look away.
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Here Comes the D-Day Myth Again

The Allied invasion of France was an important step in the war against the Nazis. But it was by no means a turning point.

One of D-Day’s Most Famous, Heroic Assaults May Have Been Unnecessary

Pointe du Hoc’s importance as a military objective has become the subject of heated debate as the invasion’s anniversary approaches.
Daveed Diggs and Lin Manuel Miranda on stage in the musical Hamilton.

Notes Toward an Essay on Imagining Thomas Jefferson Watching a Performance of the Musical "Hamilton"

"But he'd have to acknowledge that the soul of his country is southern; the soul of his country is black."

No Man’s Land

In ignoring the messy realities of westward expansion, McCullough’s "The Pioneers" is both incomplete and dull.

The Price of Meat

America’s obsession with beef was born of conquest and exploitation.

‘Midwesterners Have Seen Themselves As Being in the Center of Everything.’

In “The Heartland,” Kristin L. Hoganson says America’s Midwest has been more connected to global events than remembered.
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The World According to the 1580s

A newly digitized map offers a rare glimpse at the way Europeans conceived of the Americas before British colonization.

The Innovation Cult

The function of the "innovation" buzzword is to sustain the myth that business genius creates society’s wealth.
Still from a video game animation of a Black cowboy aiming a pistol at another.

‘Old Town Road’ and the History of Black Cowboys in America

A songwriter-historian weighs in on the controversy over Lil Nas X’s country-trap hit.

The Myth of the American Frontier

Greg Grandin’s new book charts the past and present of American expansionism and its high human costs.
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How ‘The Highwaymen’ Whitewashes Frank Hamer and the Texas Rangers

The film’s hero left a legacy of racist violence in Texas.

Charles Beard: Punished for Seeking Peace

His reputation was savaged because he had the temerity to question the 'Good War' narrative.

Debunking the Capitalist Cowboy

Business schools fetishize innovation, but their heroes succeeded due to manipulation of corporate law, not personal brilliance.
An NPS interpreter points to a map of Chancellorsville.

Freeman Tilden's "Interpreting Our Heritage" and the Civil War Centennial

How one book shaped the way the NPS interpreted the Civil War.

When the Frontier Becomes the Wall

What the border fight means for one of the nation’s most potent, and most violent, myths.

The Alamo Is a Rupture

It’s time to reckon with the true history of the mythologized Texas landmark—and the racism and imperialism it represents.

Winthrop’s “City” Was Exceptional, not Exceptionalist

A review of Daniel T. Rodgers’ "As a City on a Hill: The Story of America’s Most Famous Lay Sermon."
American Progress painting by John Gast.

Getting Out of the White Settlers’ Way

Re-telling the arrival of settlers on the prairie.

How Not to Build a “Great, Great Wall”

A timeline of border fortification, from 1945 to the Trump Era.
Painting of cavalry with swords drawn heading into U.S.-Mexico War battle.

American Extremism Has Always Flowed from the Border

Donald Trump says there is “a crisis of the soul” at the border. He is right, though not in the way he thinks.
A painting entitled "The First Thanksgiving, 1621" by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (ca. 1932).

A Brief History of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a holiday about food – but it is more specifically a holiday about food’s absence.

Appalachian Whiteness: A History that Never Existed

The “fetishization” of Appalachia’s supposed racial and ethnic purity and Trump's proposal to end birthright citizenship.
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Legends and Lore

A roadside marker program in New York State embraces the gray area between official history and local lore.

At 63, I Threw Away My Prized Portrait of Robert E. Lee

I was raised to venerate Lee the principled patriot—but I want no association with Lee the defender of slavery.
Mountains on fire above a town.

Defensible Space

“Megafires” are now a staple of life in the Pacific Northwest, but how we talk about them illustrates the tension at the heart of the western myth itself.
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Who Gets to Tell the Story?

Christine Blasey Ford, the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, and battles over America's history.
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How Pocahontas—The Myth and the Slur—Props Up White Supremacy

The roots of the attacks on Elizabeth Warren.

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