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A sparrow.

The Fall of a Sparrow

A war photographer’s unflinching images break the idealism surrounding a young Civil War hero’s death.
by Rachel Eisendrath via The Paris Review on October 23, 2025
Tori Amos singing, photo of pumpkin spice, and the words "Pumpkin Spice Can Be Used Many Ways."

The Curious, Contentious History of Pumpkin Spice Lattes

Starbucks didn’t invent them. But it’s possible that Tori Amos or a Midwest grandma did.
by Doug Mack via Snack Stack on October 21, 2025
Black and white image of Little Richard.

'Awop-bop-aloobop alop-bam-boom!': Why Little Richard's Hit Song Tutti Frutti Was So Risqué

When the single was released in 1955, it was a big hit – but only after the original lyrics were changed.
by Greg McKevitt via BBC News on October 20, 2025
Federal encampment on Cumberland Landing, Virginia.
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How the Union Lost the Remembrance War

The victors of the American Civil War failed to write their story into the history books, leaving a gap for the mythologizing of the Confederacy.
by Matthew Wills, Robert J. Cook via JSTOR Daily on October 5, 2025
Books lined up.

How Translations Sell: Three U.S. Eras of International Bestsellers

A translation renaissance in US publishing just ended. And you probably missed it.
by Jed Kudrick, Sean DiLeonardi ‪ via Public Books on September 16, 2025
Trump's Chipocalypse Now meme, featuring Trump as Lt. Kilgore attacking Chicago with helicopters.

Trump’s ‘Chipocalypse Now’ Meme Sends a Message With Deep Historical Roots

What could be more purgative, more exhilaratingly American to the MAGA base than avenging the nation with racial warfare?
by Joe Lowndes via New Lines on September 12, 2025
Clint Eastwood.

The Enigma of Clint Eastwood

Is he merely a reactionary, or do his films paint a more complicated picture?
by Adam Nayman via The Nation on September 4, 2025
Illustration of Jack Kerouac and his editor Malcolm Crowley with the manuscript "On the Road."

Scrolling Through

Jack Kerouac, Malcolm Cowley, and the difficult birth of "On the Road."
by Gerald Howard via The American Scholar on September 2, 2025
Art work of a hand holding Mars by string in the midst of the universe.

The Long History of Life on Mars

A new book explores how Americans came to believe in an advanced Martian civilization at the turn of the twentieth century.
by Jon Allsop via The New Yorker on August 29, 2025
Women from the 1890s wearing white dresses.

Common Threads: Wearing White After Labor Day

At one time, wearing white after Labor Day was not just considered a fashionable “faux pas,” but a mark of bad manners and bad taste.
by Einav Rabinovitch-Fox via The Saturday Evening Post on August 28, 2025
25 small photos of Bruce Springsteen playing the guitar or photos of him.

Noir City vs. The Opera on the Turnpike

As Bruce Springsteen’s "Born to Run" turns 50, its most underrated track deserves some love.
by Kirk Curnutt via Clio and the Contemporary on August 26, 2025
A hand draws a smiley face on a vinyl.

How Music Criticism Lost Its Edge

Music writers were once known for being much crankier than the average listener. What happened?
by Kelefa Sanneh via The New Yorker on August 25, 2025
Collage of punk coverage in zines.

Why America Still Needs Punk Rock

A brief history of our most rebellious musical genre, as seen through its DIY zines.
by Grant Wong via Current Affairs on August 19, 2025
Collage of images including spacecrafts, the moon and President Kennedy surround a jumping Elon Musk.

How NASA Engineered Its Own Decline

The agency once projected America’s loftiest ideals. Then it ceded its ambitions to Elon Musk.
by Franklin Foer via The Atlantic on July 28, 2025
Billboards advertising the new Superman film in Times Square.

Superman Was Always a Social Justice Warrior

A closer look at the character’s history shows that the latest movie is true to his past.
by Ryan Biller via New Lines on July 25, 2025
The shark approaches the boat in a scene from the film Jaws.

The Undeniable Greatness of Jaws

Jaws is a landmark hit, but also a sharp 1970s film shaped by political ire, social critique, and realist cinema’s lasting influence.
by Eileen Jones via Jacobin on July 24, 2025
The four Harper Brothers, founders of the namesake publishing giant.
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The 200 Year History of American Virtue Capitalism

Despite the recent backlash against DEI, there is a longstanding tradition of virtue capitalism in the United States.
by Joseph P. Slaughter via Made By History on July 23, 2025
Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer at Los Alamos in 1942.

General Groves Invented the Atomic Bomb, Not Oppenheimer

Gen. Leslie Groves promoted Oppenheimer as the atomic bomb's inventor to craft a propaganda narrative, obscuring the true creators and moral implications.
by Peder Anker via Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on July 21, 2025
Still frame from the film Inherit the Wind depicts a legal team sitting in a packed courtroom.
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How Theater Helps Us Remember the Scopes Trial 100 Years Later

'Inherit the Wind' changed how people understand, and remember, the legendary Scopes trial.
by Charlotte M. Canning via Made By History on July 10, 2025
Women clad in 1950s era bikinis.

Common Threads: The Origins of the Scandalous Bikini

Like the atomic bomb testing site, the new bathing suit was named “le bikini,” and its impact was almost as explosive.
by Einav Rabinovitch-Fox via The Saturday Evening Post on July 5, 2025
Movie poster for Warfare, 2025.
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War Stories Without the History

Films about the Iraq War prize “truth-telling,” but don’t offer many insights about the war itself.
by Jake Pitre via HNN on July 1, 2025
Collage of gay film covers

Good Queers and Bad Queers

Myths are fed back as stereotypes and strawmen to divine some boundary for acceptability.
by KJ Shepherd via Contingent on June 27, 2025
Silhouette of a man with smokestack smoke entering his brain.

Did Lead Poisoning Create a Generation of Serial Killers?

Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, and many other notorious figures lived in and around Tacoma in the sixties. A new book argues that there was something in the water.
by Gideon Lewis-Kraus via The New Yorker on June 25, 2025
Beyonce concert.

Why Beyoncé Is Carving a Route Along the ‘Chitlin' Circuit’

From Jim Crow-era performance to contemporary gospel musicals, entertainers have shaped the Black public sphere.
by Rashida Z. Shaw McMahon via Zócalo Public Square on May 5, 2025
Helicopter, soldiers, and civilians at the fall of Saigon.
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How We Oversimplified the History of the Vietnam War

Popular memory of the war in both the U.S. and Vietnam tends to cast the fall of Saigon as inevitable.
by Andrew Bellisari via Made By History on April 30, 2025
Mark Twain sits in thought on stone steps surrounded by nature while holding papers

Twain Dreams

The enigma of Samuel Clemens.
by John Jeremiah Sullivan via Harper’s on April 29, 2025
Political cartoon of smokers.

Puff, Puff? Pass!: The Anti-Tobacco Writings of Margaret Woods Lawrence

Reformers linked tobacco use to a deterioration of social and familial values, a habit that disrupted the sanctity of the home.
by Brian Fehler via Commonplace on April 8, 2025
A woman at a toy counter.
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“The End Is Coming! The End Is Coming!”

In the 1990s, an entire industry was born of trying to convince Americans that Beanie Babies were a great investment opportunity.
by Ross Benes via HNN on April 1, 2025
Shots from various conspiracy films of the 20th century.

The Life and Death of Conspiracy Cinema

Why did Hollywood lose interest in making paranoid thrillers? Was it a change in the culture? Or a change in the marketplace?
by T. M. Brown via The Nation on March 31, 2025
A portrait of Edgar Allen Poe.

The Most Overrated Writer in America

Do people really like Edgar Allen Poe?
by Naomi Kanakia via Woman of Letters on March 18, 2025
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