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John Tower; Pete Hegseth.

In 1989, Senators Faced a Pete Hegseth Situation Very Differently

I covered the 1989 fight over George H.W. Bush's secretary of defense nominee. It feels awfully familiar.
A painting of Marie-Louise Coidavid.
partner

The First and Last Queen of Haiti in Exile

Queen Marie-Louise outlived most of her family, yet her story about the revolution and its aftermath was rarely consulted by those writing the era’s history.
Kash Patel photographed in profile.

How Would Kash Patel Compare to J. Edgar Hoover?

If Trump’s pick to lead the F.B.I. gets confirmed, the Bureau could be politicized in ways that even its notorious first director would have rejected.
Donald Trump and RFK Jr. shaking hands.

The Magic Thinking of Kennedy-ism

The hero worship of the family of American royalty has a dark side: a tendency toward conspiracism that fits with the MAGA movement.
John Quincy Adams posing for a photograph.

Now Is Not the Time for Moral Flexibility: The Example of John Quincy Adams

We must stand by the principles of the open society, pluralism, freedom, and mutual toleration.
A sketch of a woman praying outside.

“To Eat This Big Universe as Her Oyster”

Margaret Fuller and the first major work of American feminism.
Photograph of Drag stars: Lady Bunny, Misstress Formika, Sweetie, Anna Conda, Tabboo!

A Nearly Complete Oral History of the Pyramid Club

The Pyramid Club is the stuff of downtown New York legend. In the 1980s, a tiny little dive bar became ground zero for the exploding New York drag scene.
A still from the Apprentice of Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump and Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn inside a car.

The Apprenticeship of Donald Trump

A new film examines Trump's formative years under the tutelage of Roy Cohn.
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.
A monkey listening to a radio with headphones.

The Scopes Trial and the Two Visions of US Democracy

A new history revisits “the Trial of the Century” and its legacy in contemporary politics.
A pile of guns and rifle magazines on top of bullets.

More Guns, More Money: How America Turned Weapons Into a Consumer Commodity

How an American arms dealer and a surplus of guns in Europe after World War II popularized gun ownership.
Two drawn caricatures of Ronald Reagan's face.

I’m a Historian of the ’80s. I Cannot Tell You How Bizarre the New Ronald Reagan Movie Is.

There’s hagiography, then there’s...whatever this is.
John Andrew Jackson riding a galloping horse and tipping his hat.
partner

How Do We Tell a Tale of People Who Sought to Disappear?

The life of John Andrew Jackson — and the vacillating richness and scarcity of the archive.
A political cartoon of Charles Guiteau holding a pistol and a sign that reads "An Office or Your Life."

Why Are Presidential Assassins Such Sad Sacks?

What would-be killers of the US commander in chief have in common is that they aren’t fervent ideologues; they’re outcasts.
A drawing of a city skyline filled with skyscrapers.

The Man Who Saved the Skyscraper

Fazlur Khan and the idea that would turn architecture on its head.
A drawing of a crowd of people standing around the Wakasa stone in a crate.

The Recollector

How the Wakasa stone, a memorial to a Japanese man murdered in a Utah internment camp, became the flash point of a bitter modern dispute.
A drawing of Nathanael Greene.
partner

An Unlikely Soldier

On Nathanael Greene’s inauspicious start.
A photograph of TJ Hicks running in the 1904 Olympics with his two coaches holding him upright.

How the 1904 Marathon Became One of the Weirdest Olympic Events of All Time

Athletes drank poison, dodged traffic, stole peaches and even hitchhiked during the 24.85-mile race in St. Louis.
Three photographs of Mother Jones with each becoming less pixelated until the final image is clear.

America’s Best Made-Up Person

On the transformation of Mary Harris into Mother Jones.
Joni Mitchell.

How Joni Mitchell Pioneered Her Own Form of Artistic Genius

On the long and continuing struggle of women artists for recognition on their own terms.
A photograph of Bonnie Erickson posing with the Phillie Phanatic mascot.

Miss Piggy Has a Mother

Everyone’s heard of Jim Henson. It’s time to give Bonnie Erickson — creator of beloved Muppets and mascots including the Phillie Phanatic — her due.
Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings.

How Nashville Outsiders Changed Country Music Forever

An excerpt from the new book "Willie, Waylon, and the Boys."
Hands manipulating the earth like a Rubik's cube.

When the C.I.A. Messes Up

Its agents are often depicted as malevolent puppet masters—or as bumbling idiots. The truth is even less comforting.
A drawing that depicts statues of colonial figures on top of pillars.

Messy, Messy Masculinity

The politics of eccentric men in the early United States.
A drawing of a hedgehog in Buffon's Natural History.

Waking From the Dream of Total Knowledge

Considering how relationships of cooperation and perhaps even solidarity might be forged between human beings and animals.
Sinclair Lewis.

How to Study the “Village Virus”

Sinclair Lewis and the small-town science of yearning.
A large crowd listening to Harry Truman give a speech on a train.

Harry Truman's Train Ride

A whistle-stop train tour, and some plain speaking spur Harry Truman's come from behind win in 1948 over Thomas Dewey.
Book cover that reads: "The Next Great American Novel," with the American flag in the background

"James" Is a Retelling of "Huckleberry Finn" that America Desperately Needs

It puts the people in the most peril in the center of the story: the people being systematically exploited, chained, whipped and raped.

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.
Patti Davis sits for a portrait with her pug, Lily, at her home.

For Years, the Reagans' Daughter Regretted Some Things She Wrote. Now She's at Peace.

Patti Davis has spent a lifetime chronicling her life with parents Ronald and Nancy Reagan. In a new book, 'Dear Mom and Dad,' she reckons with them as people.

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