political resistance — Bunk History

The author and other children picketing the Board of Education in protest of her father's firing.

A General Air of Anxiety

The Red Scare targeted my father. He taught me the meaning of resistance.

by Joan Wallach Scott via Boston Review on September 10, 2025

1999 Yugoslavian stamp depicting a NATO jet launching a missile at an oil refinery.

Stamps Capture Unchanging Face of U.S. Violence Abroad

Countries have also used their postal systems to fight back against aggression.

by Matin Modarressi via Foreign Policy in Focus on January 6, 2025

Protesters storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

What’s the Difference Between a Rampaging Mob and a Righteous Protest?

From the French Revolution to January 6th, crowds have been heroized and vilified. Now they’re a field of study.

by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on November 18, 2024

Lincoln being sworn in by Chief Justice Taney.

We Are Already Defying the Supreme Court

The risks of calling on politicians to push back against the court must be weighed against the present reality of a malign judicial dictatorship.

by Samuel Moyn, Ryan D. Doerfler via Dissent on January 22, 2024

Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón at the Los Angeles County Jail, circa 1916.

An American Story

Kelly Lytle Hernández’s new book chronicles the tumultuous period leading up to the Mexican Revolution, casting the border as ground zero for continental change.

by Francisco Cantú via New York Review of Books on March 9, 2023

Young demonstraters from Los Angeles in La Marcha Por La Justicia, 1971.

The Many Explosions of Los Angeles in the 1960s

Set the Night on Fire isn't just a portrait of a city in upheaval. It's a history of uprisings for civil rights, against poverty, and for a better world.

by Samuel Farber via Jacobin on June 29, 2020

Roger Goodell’s Father Had a Political Backbone—Why Doesn’t Roger?

The NFL commissioner is bending to pressure from a reactionary Republican president—something his father refused to do.

by John Nichols via The Nation on May 27, 2018

Detail from the Russian poster for the 1957 Polish film Kanal, directed by Andrzej Wajda and set during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Photo by Getty

The Strange Political History of The ‘Underground’

Subterranean metaphors have been a powerful tool of political resistance. Today, is there anywhere left to hide?

by Terence Renaud via Aeon on December 14, 2016

Fugitives from slavery disembarking from a boat to waiting coaches.

The Underground Railroad’s Stealth Sailors

The web of Atlantic trading routes and solidarity among maritime workers meant a fugitive's chances of reaching freedom below deck were better than over land.

by Eric Foner via New York Review of Books on October 2, 2025

Political cartoon depicts Roosevelt steering a ship out of a depression while his detractors are rained on.

Welcoming Their Hatred

As Elon Musk and Donald Trump engaged in a campaign of mutually-assured destruction, social media saw record new levels of schadenfreude.

by Kevin M. Kruse via Campaign Trails on June 6, 2025

A protester holds a "Patriots don't tolerate tyranny" sign. Other signs advocate for the rule of law over kings and tyranny.

The Freedom-Loving Minutemen of Massachusetts Strike Again

Just down the road from Lexington and Concord, American patriots scurried to defend their immigrant neighbors.

by Harold Meyerson via The American Prospect on May 20, 2025

Woodrow Wilson and a panel of red stars.

Surviving Bad Presidents

What the Constitution asks of us.

by George Thomas via The Bulwark on May 16, 2025

Protestors hold anti-communist picket signs outside of a theatre

The Grim Timeliness of “Noir and the Blacklist”

A new Criterion series of McCarthy-era noir films is a timely collection for an era of rising government repression.

by Eileen Jones via Jacobin on May 4, 2025

American soldiers in Vietnam.

If You’ve Watched Ken Burns’ Vietnam Documentary, Do You Need Netflix’s?

I, a historian of the Vietnam War, have watched the Turning Point treatment. I have some notes.

by Scott Laderman via Slate on April 30, 2025

Woodrow Wilson delivering his second innaugural address in front of a large crowd.

America Was at Its Trumpiest 100 Years Ago. Here’s How to Prevent the Worst.

During World War I, America lurched toward autocracy. Resistance was minimal.

by Adam Hochschild via Washington Post on April 3, 2025

Collage of protesters holding up signs against war taxes.

Could Tax Protests Defund the American War Machine?

Tax resistance has long opposed war and empire in North America, and could be a way to resist U.S. funding of violence in Gaza today.

by Lauren Fadiman via Current Affairs on March 18, 2025

Martin Galvin, of Noraid, standing in front of a crowd of protesting supporters, holding a copy of "The Irish People" newspaper with the headline "Martin Galvin safe after building capture."

There’s a Hidden History of US Support for Irish Republicans

The solidarity group Noraid raised millions of dollars to support the Irish republican movement during the Troubles.

by Devin Thomas O’Shea via Jacobin on March 16, 2025

A woman with a rifle, superimposed on an American flag.

From Philly to Derry: On the Americans Who Armed the IRA During The Troubles

Vincent Conlon’s secret life in the United States as an operative and gun-running Irish rebel.

by Ali Watkins via Literary Hub on March 11, 2025

Protesters in the middle of a road holding a sign that displays the three downward arrows symbol and reads "destroy fascism."

Is Trump Hitler, or just… Woodrow Wilson?

Comparing Trump to Hitler and Mussolini obscures the basis of his mass appeal.

by Ben Burgis via Damage on December 4, 2024

Young people running through the streets of Taipei; a middle aged businessman in Houston.

Texas’ Hotbed of Taiwanese Nationalism

For decades, Houston families like mine have helped keep the flame of independence burning.

by Josephine Lee via Texas Observer on November 25, 2024

Charles Francis Phillips and Owen Cattell, two Columbia University students, seated.

In 1917, Columbia’s Clampdown Remade the Antiwar Movement

When police raided Columbia University in May, commentators drew parallels to the 1968. But the school’s hostility to the antiwar movement traces back to 1917.

by Dan La Botz via Jacobin on July 11, 2024

Donald Trump speaking into microphone and pointing his finger.

‘I’d Rather Have 10 Ken Starrs Than One Donald Trump’

A new book explores the history of presidents who abused their constitutional power and the citizen movements that stopped them.

by Michael Kruse, Corey Brettschneider via Politico on July 8, 2024

Painting of the Boston Tea Party.

“Boston Harbor a Tea-pot This Night!”

The dumping of tons of tea in protest set the stage for the American Revolution and was a window on the culture and attitudes of the time.

by Benjamin L. Carp via American Heritage on March 19, 2024

Indochina Peace Campaign organizers hanging out in Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda's backyard in Santa Monica, California, in 1974.

Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, Capitol Hill Antiwar Lobbyists

In 1974, after years of grinding war in Vietnam had exhausted most of the antiwar movement, Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda came up with a new strategy.

by Michael Koncewicz via Jacobin on March 11, 2024

Cover of essays by John Dickinson.

Principled Resistance and the Trouble with Tea

For what did these Americans endure such painful hardship and sacrifice? For what were they taking such a significant stand? Surely, it wasn’t just about tea!

by Robert Guy via Journal of the American Revolution on February 27, 2024

Colonists in front of the Old State House in Boston.

‘King Hancock’ Review: The Biggest Name in Boston

More than an artful calligrapher, John Hancock forswore the austerity of his fellow Bostonians, and their extremism.

by William Anthony Hay via The Wall Street Journal on October 6, 2023

A still from the 1960 film Spartacus of two Roman gladiators fighting.

How Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus Broke the Hollywood Blacklists

The 1960 film was penned by two blacklisted Communist writers. Its arrival in theaters was a middle finger to the McCarthyist witch hunt in Hollywood.

by Taylor Dorrell via Jacobin on September 14, 2023

"Spy vs. Spy" pointy-headed characters facing each other

Rethinking Spy vs. Spy: A Hand From One Page, A Bomb From Another

Like the spies themselves, the image we have of something is often what gets us in trouble.

by Gyasi Hall via Longreads on September 12, 2023

African American school children at Horatio Greenough’s statue of George Washington at the US Capitol, 1899.

Why the Age of Revolution Loved the Classical World

Radicals in the Age of Revolution saw the classical world as a common inheritance that could aid their fight for liberty.

by Francesca Langer via Aeon on May 30, 2023

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.

by Jonathan Eig, Steve Nathans-Kelly via Chicago Review of Books on May 23, 2023

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