debate — Bunk History

Photos of William F. Buckley and James Baldwin.

When William F. Buckley Jr. Met James Baldwin

In 1965, the two intellectual giants squared off in a debate at Cambridge. It didn’t go quite as Buckley hoped.

by Sam Tanenhaus via The Atlantic on May 20, 2025

Ronald Reagan

Revisiting the Panama Canal Debate of 1978

The uproar over Trump’s remarks about the Canal recalls a lively debate from the late 1970s.

by James W. Carden via The American Conservative on January 23, 2025

Demonstrators with signs supporting the legalization of abortion.

What Are the Lessons of “Roe”?

A new book chronicles the decades-long fight to legalize abortion in the United States.

by Moira Donegan via The Nation on April 4, 2023

Title page of a collection of the letters that debated Great Britain, inscribed to President John Adams.

Massachusettensis and Novanglus: The Last Great Debate Prior to the American Revolution

James M. Smith explains the last debates between Loyalists and Patriots prior to the official outbreak of the American Revolution.

by James M. Smith via Journal of the American Revolution on May 25, 2021

The Great Debate: Martin Luther King, Jr. vs Robert F. Williams

In 1959 there was a public debate on violence vs nonviolence in the pages of The Liberator magazine between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Williams.

by Ben Passmore via The Nib on February 10, 2020

Broadside for debate between W.E.B. DuBois and Lothrop Stoddard.

When W.E.B. Du Bois Made a Laughing Stock of a White Supremacist

Why the Jim Crow-era debate between the African-American leader and a ridiculous, Nazi-loving racist isn’t as famous as Lincoln-Douglas.

by Ian Frazier via The New Yorker on August 19, 2019

Collage of old political cartoons related to the question of women's suffrage.

Massachusetts Debates a Woman’s Right to Vote

A brief history of the Massachusetts suffrage movement, and it's opposition, told through images of the time.

via Massachusetts Historical Society on April 26, 2019

The Moment That Political Debates on TV Turned to Spectacle

A new documentary explores the infamous 1968 dispute between William Buckley and Gore Vidal.

by Nadine Ajaka via The Atlantic on September 27, 2016

William F. Buckley Jr. surrounded by piles of books in his office.

What Made William F. Buckley So Unusual

The author of a new biography talks about the conservative journalist’s life and legacy.

by Sam Tanenhaus, Cullen Murphy via The Atlantic on June 1, 2025

An eraser erasing a drawing of man.

R.F.K., Jr., Anthony Fauci, and the Revolt Against Expertise

It used to be progressives who distrusted the experts. What happened?

by Daniel Immerwahr via The New Yorker on May 19, 2025

U.S Custom House.

Lessons from Early America’s Tariff Wars

The 1790s debate shows that, even when they aim at moral goods, tariffs abet cronyism and corruption.

by John C. Pinheiro via Law & Liberty on April 23, 2025

City College of New York in a still from Joseph Dorman’s Arguing the World, 1997.

The 176-Year Argument

How the City College of New York went from an experiment in public education to an intellectual hot spot for working class and immigrant students.

by Vivian Gornick via New York Review of Books on April 3, 2025

A photograph of Frederick Douglass imposed on the cover of The Columbian Orator by Caleb Bingham.

The Columbian Orator Taught Nineteenth-Century Americans How to Speak

For strivers like Lincoln, guides to rhetoric had a special currency in the nineteenth century.

by Danny Heitman via Humanities on April 2, 2025

William and Henry James.

William and Henry James

Examining the tumultuous bond between the two brothers.

by Peter Brooks via The Paris Review on April 1, 2025

Donald Trump at Lancaster Airport on November 3, 2024, in Lititz, Pennsylvania.

This Is America

Donald Trump’s authoritarian second term has led critics to describe him as a fascist in the mold of Adolf Hitler.

by Daniel Bessner via Jacobin on March 27, 2025

Stephen Jay Gould in front of a picture of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

How Stephen Jay Gould Fought the Science Culture Wars

In the 1970s, a crop of books purporting to provide a scientific basis for gender inequality met sharp criticism from figures like Gould.

by Myrna Perez via Jacobin on January 12, 2025

Protestors standing against the death penalty.

An Exercise in Political Imagination: Debating William F. Buckley

Stephen Bright and Bryan Stevenson defended the abolition of capital punishment at a moment when political support for that movement reached its nadir.

by Robert L. Tsai via Liberal Currents on October 31, 2024

Followers salute Trump at his rally in Madison Square Garden.

Trump in the Garden

Eight years into the fascism debate, few skeptics seem to be willing to admit that they were wrong.

by Patrick Iber via Dissent on October 29, 2024

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.

by Michael Kazin via The Nation on September 30, 2024

Not “Three-Fifths of a Person”

What the three-fifths clause meant at ratification.

by Nathaniel C. Green via Commonplace on September 10, 2024

Anti-KKK demonstrators at the 1924 Democratic National Conventions.

The Craziest Convention in American History

Think this year’s Democratic convention is going to be nuts? One hundred years ago, Democrats took 103 ballots—and more than two weeks—to choose a candidate.

by Walter Shapiro via The New Republic on June 24, 2024

NYPD arrests hundreds, including members of the Jewish group Not In Our Name, at a pro-Palestinian protest in Brooklyn on April 23, 2024.

Jewish Critics of Zionism Have Clashed with American Jewish Leaders for Decades

American foreign aid to Israel has long relied on the support of American Jews. But American Jews have never been unified in their support for Israel.

by Marjorie N. Feld via The Conversation on June 20, 2024

Alexander Hamilton

The Federalist No. 1: Annotated

Alexander Hamilton’s anonymous essay challenged the voting citizens of New York to hold fast to the truth when deciding to ratify (or not) the US Constitution.

by Alexander Hamilton, Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on May 30, 2024

The Electoral College and Slavery

It's easy to get this one wrong.

by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on May 24, 2024

Spindle boys in Georgia cotton mill.

America Has Been Having the Same Debate About Child Labor for 100 Years

A century ago, debates about the failed Child Labor Amendment turned on larger issues about work, childhood, and the role of government.

by Janet Golden via Made By History on May 23, 2024

Collage of Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ted Kennedy on the campaign trail.

The Debate Gaffe That Changed American History

And cost Gerald Ford the presidency.

by Jeff Greenfield via Politico Magazine on May 9, 2024

Donald Trump.

Why We Can’t Stop Arguing About Whether Trump Is a Fascist

In a new book, “Did it Happen Here?,” scholars debate what the F-word conceals and what it reveals.

by Andrew Marantz via The New Yorker on March 27, 2024

The Branch Davidian compound, Mount Carmel, Waco, Texas.

I Will Give Thee Madonna

Kevin Cook and Jeff Guinn on David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and the 1993 siege of Waco.

by Richard Beck via London Review of Books on March 15, 2024

People holding signs supporting Alfred E. Smith at the 1924 Democratic Convention

Lessons from the 1924 Democratic Convention: An Immigration Debate's Impact

Immigration has been a defining issue in a campaign before, and the consequences transformed the Democratic Party.

via Retro Report on March 14, 2024

At the New York Public Library, 15 December 2004.

The Birth of Our System for Describing Web Content

Over a weekend in 1995, a small group gathered in Ohio to unleash the power of the internet by making it navigable.

by Monica Westin via Aeon on February 22, 2024

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