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A map of Mexico and border states.
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The Fear of “Mexicanization”

The anxiety about “Mexicanization” that ran through Reconstruction-Era politics, as Americans saw disturbing political parallels with their southern neighbor.
via BackStory on January 17, 2014
The White House.

Sociology and the Presidency

In 1979, Carter's "malaise speech," shaped by sociological insights, sought national unity but clashed with Reagan's appeal to individualism.
by Matthew Braswell via The Fifth Floor on October 25, 2013
Henry Clay's body in his death bed, surrounded by mourners.

All That Remains of Henry Clay

Political funerals and the tour of Henry Clay's corpse.
by Sarah J. Purcell via Commonplace on April 2, 2012
George W. Bush

George W. Bush Declares a War on Terror

Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address kicked off a war that continued well into the 21st century.
via Voices & Visions on January 29, 2002
Highways & Horizons, front and back covers of brochure for the General Motors pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. [Prelinger Library]

Highways and Horizons

The Interstate Highway System created a national polity defined by circulation. To rethink the Interstates is to rethink the United States.
by Reinhold Martin via Places Journal on June 20, 2025
Two Vietnamese women mourn their relatives on April 29, 1975, at Bien Hoa military cemetery.

US Defeat in Vietnam Was the Right Outcome for an Unjust War

The US invasion of Vietnam was catastrophic for the Vietnamese people, resulting in millions of deaths. Fifty years ago, the US-backed regime finally collapsed.
by Michael G. Vann via Jacobin on April 30, 2025
1860 political cartoon depicting Lincoln as a "Wide-Awake"
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A Posthumous Romance of White Male Reunion

The history of deriving political meaning from Abraham Lincoln’s sexuality.
by Andrew Donnelly via HNN on February 11, 2025
A painting of George Washington on horseback reviewing the Western Army at Fort Cumberland.
partner

Merry, Manly Militias

Levity and play — eerily combined with anxiety, terror, and deadly violence — shaped the identity and image of Early Republic militias.
by Eran A. Zelnik via HNN on January 28, 2025
A crowd at a Trump rally, holding signs and flags endorsing him, as well as a Confederate flag.

Trump Is Not an Aberration

America’s path has been contested since its founding, and realizing the promise of liberty required generations of struggle.
by Jeffrey C. Isaac via New Lines on November 12, 2024
George Washington

The Moment of Truth

The reelection of Donald Trump would mark the end of George Washington’s vision for the presidency—and the United States.
by Tom Nichols via The Atlantic on October 9, 2024
A sign that reads "In God We Trust" over the seal of the United States.

Mainline Protestants and Christian Nationalism

Exploring the role mainline Protestants have played in promoting the idea of America as a Christian country.
by Brian Kaylor, Beau Underwood via The Revealer on September 5, 2024
A drawing of two people speaking with a third person's head listening between them.

Diverging Majority

Demography has not managed to be destiny in the past half-century—but predictions of a millenarian shift have not lost their appeal.
by Rick Perlstein, Geraldo Cadava via The Baffler on September 3, 2024
Painted scene of a busy city, with horses, carts, and hay barrels in the foreground and tall skyscrapers in the background. George Bellows. New York, 1911. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon. National Gallery of Art (1986.72.1). CC0, nga.gov. Accessed July 21, 2024.

America’s War on Theater

James Shapiro's book "The Playbook" is a timely reminder both of the power of theater and of the vehement antipathy it can generate.
by Daniel Blank via Los Angeles Review of Books on July 22, 2024
President Ronald Reagan, pictured waving to a crowd shortly before John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate him on March 30, 1981.

The History of Presidential Assassination Attempts, From Andrew Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt

Before last weekend’s attack on Donald Trump, would-be assassins targeted Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and seven other presidents or candidates.
by Meilan Solly via Smithsonian on July 17, 2024
Oil on canvas (1993–94) depicting the third signing of the Louisiana Treaty in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Trade, Ambition, and the Rise of American Empire

High ideals have always gone together with economic self-interest in the history of the United States.
by Samuel Gregg via Law & Liberty on July 17, 2024
Cover of "American Civil Wars" by Alan Taylor.

Our Civil War Was Bigger Than You Think

Alan Taylor’s case for thinking of it as a continental conflict.
by Casey Michel via The Bulwark on June 21, 2024
Aziz Rana.

Aziz Rana Wants Us to Stop Worshipping the Constitution

A conversation with the legal scholar on why it is unusual that the Constitution is core to American national identity.
by Aziz Rana, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via The Nation on June 3, 2024
Side-by-side photographs of Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison.

On Garrison, Douglass, and American Colonialism

Examining how William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass interpreted the nation's relationship with the Constitution.
by Maggie Blackhawk via LPE Project on April 22, 2024
Richard Slotkin.

“A Theory of America”: Mythmaking with Richard Slotkin

"I was always working on a theory of America."
by Kathleen Belew, Richard S. Slotkin via Public Books on April 19, 2024
A drawing of Noah Webster over drawings of the Webster dictionary, his notes, and a quill and ink.

Webster’s Dictionary 1828: Annotated

Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language declared Americans free from the tyranny of British institutions and their vocabularies.
by Noah Webster, Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on April 19, 2024
A photograph of Andrew Johnson.

Tennessee Johnson Reel vs. Real

The real Andrew Johnson compared with the only film made about his life.
by Tom Elmore via Emerging Civil War on February 16, 2024
A collage in which a photograph of Blanche Ames Ames is superimposed on a photograph of John F. Kennedy.

How John F. Kennedy Fell for the Lost Cause

And the grandmother who wouldn’t let him get away with it.
by Jordan Virtue via The Atlantic on November 13, 2023
Richard Nixon pointing to a map of Cambodia.

The Unhappy Legal History of the War Powers Resolution

How the law became a staging ground for unrestrained war.
by Mary L. Dudziak via Modern American History on July 8, 2023
A diagram of the solar system from 1781, focused on Uranus.

American Uranus

The early republic and the seventh planet.
by M. A. Davis via Age of Revolutions on April 3, 2023
Postcard of Sarajevo.

Collapsing Pluralism: The Bosnian War Three Decades Later

The US is not Yugoslavia, but its struggles surrounding pluralism, nationalism, and an urban/rural divide parallel those Yugoslavia faced as it descended into chaos.
by Ryan Reft via Tropics of Meta on March 13, 2023
Civil War veterans in the Grand Army of the Republic, Cazenovia, New York, circa 1900.

The American Civil War and the Case for a “Long” Age of Revolution

The Age of Revolution, known mainly as the period between the American Revolution and the Revolutions of 1848, continued all the way to 1865.
by Daniel Koch via Muster on June 7, 2022
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US secretary of state James Baker in the Kremlin, Moscow, February 9, 1990.

‘A Bridge Too Far’

Even the most ardent advocates of NATO expansion after the implosion of the USSR realized that it had limits—and one of those limits was Ukraine.
by Fred Kaplan via New York Review of Books on March 11, 2022
Whitney Houston singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl

The NFL, the National Anthem, and the Super Bowl

A brief history of their tangled saga of patriotism and dissent.
by Mark Clague via The Conversation on February 10, 2022
Front page of the Saturday Evening Post

The Persistence of the Saturday Evening Post

When George Horace Lorimer took over as editor of the Saturday Evening Post, America was a patchwork of communities. There was no sense of nation or unity.
by Amanda Darrach via CJR on November 9, 2021
Women holding poster at a rally against critical race theory education

Closer Together

Across party lines, Americans actually agree on teaching “divisive concepts.”
by Pete Burkholder via Slate on October 15, 2021
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