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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
U.S. President Donald Trump looks at an executive order in the Oval Office.

Are Trump's Actions 'Unprecedented'? Here's What Seven Historians Say

Trump's second administration is 'unprecedented' to some, but historians find parallels in ancient Rome, Nazi Germany, and Latin American dictatorship.
by Miles Klee via Rolling Stone on February 22, 2025
Revolutionary War reenactors shooting muskets.

“Originalist” Arguments Against Gun Control Get U.S. History Completely Wrong

Gun control is actually an American tradition.
by Mary C. Curtis, Robert J. Spitzer via Slate on May 3, 2023
President Truman in the Oval Office after presenting three Korean War veterans with the Medal of Honor.

When History Becomes Precedent in the OLC

Official decisions about military intervention and executive power are often based on outdated historical interpretations.
by Mary L. Dudziak via Balkinization on January 16, 2023

“Deeply Rooted in this Nation’s History and Tradition"

The bad history in Alito’s draft overturning Roe v. Wade.
by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on May 3, 2022
Drawing of a spiral bound notebook with pen markings.

Fighting Racial Bias With an Unlikely Weapon: Footnotes

A collaborative project by legal scholars sets out to make visible the vast array of legal precedents based on cases involving enslaved people.
by Justin Wm. Moyer via Washington Post Magazine on January 14, 2022
Portrait of Steve Bannon with a serious expression

Executive Privilege Was Out of Control Even Before Steve Bannon Claimed It

A short history of a made-up constitutional doctrine that gives presidents too much power.
by Timothy Noah via The New Republic on October 18, 2021
U.S. soldiers in combat during the Korean War
partner

How the Korean War Changed the Way the U.S. Goes to Battle

In the Cold War, North Korean Communists invaded South Korea. President Truman’s decision to intervene had consequences that shape the world today.
via Retro Report on April 19, 2021

We’ve Never Been Here Before

This is nothing like 2008. Or even 1914.
by Adam Tooze via Washington Post on March 25, 2020
The four Harper Brothers, founders of the namesake publishing giant.
partner

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
Cartographic depiction of the Union armies Anaconda plan shows a snake wrapping around the American South.

The President's Awesome War Powers

Where they come from, how they've evolved, and how they could change.
by Lindsay M. Chervinsky via Imperfect Union on July 15, 2025
A throng of Trump supporters, some in colonial garb, march through Washington D.C.

The 19th-Century Precursors to the Crises of Trump’s America

Revisiting history shows that violence and constitutional disputes are nothing new in US politics.
by Marcus Alexander Gadson via New Lines on July 4, 2025
Engraving of Founding Fathers reading the Declaration of Independence while onlookers rally.

Does America Have a Founding Philosophy?

It depends on how you read the Declaration’s “self-evident” truths.
by James R. Stoner, Jr. via Modern Age on July 1, 2025
Donald Trump shakes the hand of a border patrol officer while a line of others waits to meet him.

State of Exception

National security governance, then and now.
by David Klion via The Drift on June 24, 2025
William E. Humphrey and Franklin D. Roosevelt with national symbols.

The Supreme Court Undercuts Another Check on Executive Power

To defend the Trump Administration, the Court ignored long-standing precedent barring Presidents from firing independent-agency heads at will.
by Ruth Marcus via The New Yorker on May 29, 2025
Donald Trump and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

When Presidents Sought a Third (and Fourth) Term

Winning more than two elections was unthinkable. Then came FDR.
by Russell Berman via The Atlantic on May 1, 2025
Clark Mills’s statue of Andrew Jackson, Lafayette Park, Washington D.C., circa 1910–1925

Vance’s Junk History

When Donald Trump and his followers go in search of historical forerunners to justify their regime, they turn with striking regularity to the presidency.
by Sean Wilentz via New York Review of Books on April 25, 2025
Chief Justice John Roberts.

So, How Much of Korematsu Did the Supreme Court “Overrule,” Exactly?

Chief Justice John Roberts called it “obvious” that the infamous decision has “no place in law under the Constitution.” Recent events suggest otherwise.
by Madiba K. Dennie via Balls And Strikes on April 14, 2025
Silhouettes of John Tyler and John Quincy Adams
partner

The Constitution Does Not Speak for Itself

In 1841, John Tyler said he was the president. The Constitution said he wasn’t. What happened next?
by Eric Eisner, David B. Froomkin via HNN on April 1, 2025
Gerald Ford signs Richard Nixon's pardon, superimposed over a smiling Nixon.

Blame Gerald Ford for Trump’s Unaccountability

In a new book, Jeffrey Toobin makes a convincing case that Ford’s pardon of President Nixon set the stage for unchecked presidential power.
by Franklin Foer via The Atlantic on February 11, 2025
A drawing of a Viking ship approaching Greenland.

The Long Struggle for Greenland

Throughout its history, the vast Arctic island has been viewed by competing powers as a strategic prize and geopolitical asset.
by Paul Lay via Engelsberg Ideas on January 8, 2025
Richard Nixon at a press conference pointing at a reporter.

Nixon’s Official Acts Against His Enemies List Led to a Bipartisan Impeachment Effort

An enemies list isn’t a weapon against ‘the Deep State.’ It was a tool Richard Nixon used to create a deep state of his own.
by Ken Hughes via The Conversation on December 18, 2024
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
Birthright citizenship form, with infant footprints stamped in black ink, on fire.

The Plot Against Birthright Citizenship

The incoming Trump administration wants to take away citizenship for the US-born children of undocumented immigrants. Here’s how.
by Isabela Dias via Mother Jones on November 26, 2024

The Case Against New York Times v. Sullivan

The malice test is the result of judicial activism and should be rejected by a Court that understands its task as the discovery, not the invention of law.
by Carson Holloway via Law & Liberty on November 1, 2024
William Rehnquist

The Late Supreme Court Chief Who Haunts Today’s Right-Wing Justices

William Rehnquist went from a lonely dissenter to an institutionalist chief—and his opinions are all the rage among the court’s current conservatives.
by Duncan Hosie via The New Republic on October 23, 2024
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.
by Tom Nichols via The Atlantic on October 9, 2024
A hallway inside of an old prison with wooden cell doors and brick walls.

The Supreme Court Is Using History to Disenfranchise Unhoused People

The court’s ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson involves highly selective readings of the historiography and a willful misrepresentation of history.
by Kristin O’Brassill-Kulfan via The Panorama on September 17, 2024
President Gerald Ford announcing his decision to grant a pardon to former President Richard Nixon on Sept. 8, 1974.

Supreme Court Ruling in Trump v. United States Would Have Given Nixon Immunity for Watergate Crimes

President Ford’s pardon of Nixon is seen as a damaging precedent establishing presidential impunity. Now, the Supreme Court has affirmed that impunity.
by Ken Hughes via The Conversation on September 12, 2024
Antonin Scalia with Ronald Reagan, William Rehnquist, and Warren Burger at a press conference announcing Scalia's nomination to the Supreme Court.

The Return of the Common Law?

The originalist revolution will never be complete until we fully appreciate the natural law roots of the common law.
by Steven Hayward via Law & Liberty on September 9, 2024
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