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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.
A family of Greek immigrants disembarking on Ellis Island.

For We Were Strangers in the Land of America

Comparing the struggles of Mexican and Greek immigrants to the United States.
The New York Times headquarters in Manhattan.

The ‘Times’ Is A-Changing

A new history of the ‘New York Times.’
Tom Wolfe in profile against the New York City skyline.

The Electric Kool-Aid Conservative

Tom Wolfe was no radical.
Operatives using air defense systems.

The Two Chomskys

The US military’s greatest enemy worked in an institution saturated with military funding. How did it shape his thought?
Painting of waves crashing in the ocean by Winslow Homer

After Melville

In every generation, writers and readers find new ways to plumb the depths of Herman Melville and his work.
A drawing of James Longstreet, zoomed in on his eyes.

The Confederate General Whom All the Other Confederates Hated

James Longstreet became a champion of Reconstruction. Why?
Collage of Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet, waving, and smoking, and a picture of his home in Queens.

Louis Armstrong Gets the Last Word on Louis Armstrong

For decades, Americans have argued over the icon’s legacy. But his archives show that he had his own plans.
A photograph of Louisa May Alcott.

Nonfiction That Rivals Little Women: The Forgotten Essays of Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott is best known for Little Women, but she earned her first taste of celebrity as an essayist.
Spiro T. Agnew button.

The Wildest Month of the US Presidency, Part I

The Spiro Agnew Edition.
Poster of Kate Mullaney holding an iron in a fist above her head, with the words "Don't iron while the strike is hot."

Reopened Museum Honors Women's Fight for Fairness

Kate Mullany's former home in Troy, New York honors one of the earliest women's labor unions that sought fair pay and safe working conditions.
J. Robert Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves

Beyond Tortured Genius: Science and Conscience in Two Rediscovered Oppenheimer Films

"The Day After Trinity" and "The Strangest Dream" evacuate the mythical tropes of the tortured genius biopic that Hollywood loves to rehearse.
Bessel van der Kolk.

How Trauma Became America’s Favorite Diagnosis

Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk’s once controversial theory of trauma became the dominant way we make sense of our lives.
A photograph of a bouquet flowers with the center of the image intentionally cut out.

Nothing to See Here

For centuries the study of optics and the use of invisibility in science fiction have developed side by side, each inspiring the other.
Television with LeVar Burton holding book and surrounded by rainbows.

How An Untested, Cash-Strapped TV Show About Books Became An American Classic

Despite facing political headwinds and raising 'suspicion' among publishers, 'Reading Rainbow' introduced generations of American kids to books.
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg leaving the courthouse in a prison van, 1951.

Not How He Wanted to Be Remembered

Two decades passed before the ghosts of the Rosenbergs came back to haunt Irving Kaufman, the judge who sentenced them to death.
A woman poses with a kitten next to a wooden barrel labeled "Queen of the Mist"

American Daredevils

The nineteenth-century commitment to thrilling an audience embodied an emerging synergy of public performance, collective experience, and individual agency.
Jonathan Big next to cover of "King: A Life."

Restoring the Real, Radical Martin Luther King Jr. in “King: A Life”

A new biography of King emerges at a "critical juncture" for his legacy.
Will Smith as the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Tracing the Evolution of Celebrity Memoirs, from Charles Lindbergh to Will Smith

Creating a personal myth allows celebrities to create just that—a myth.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe holding a guitar

Amazing Base: A Singer Wed in a D.C. Ballpark, and 19,000 Paid to Attend

Attendees packed D.C.’s Griffith Stadium in 1951 for the wedding spectacular of gospel singer Rosetta Tharpe, who’s now the subject of a show at Ford's Theatre.

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