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A photograph of four children standing, one is slouching.

Are You Sitting Up Straight? America’s Obsession with Improving Posture

In Beth Linker’s new book, she applies a disability studies lens to the history of posture.

by Laura Ansley via Perspectives on History on May 9, 2024

A copy of "On Death and Dying" with a magnifying glass in front of it.

Lost in the Five Stages of Grief

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s “On Death and Dying” sparked a revolution in end-of-life care. But soon she began to deny mortality altogether.

by Colin Dickey via The New Republic on April 24, 2024

Clara Bow

Taylor Swift’s Homage to Clara Bow

The star of the 1920s silver screen who appears on Taylor Swift’s new album abruptly left Hollywood at the height of her success.

by Deirdre Clemente, Annie Delgado via The Conversation on April 15, 2024

Henry Ward Beecher.

When Preachers Were Rock Stars

A classic New Yorker account of the Henry Ward Beecher adultery trial recalls a time in America that seems both incomprehensible and familiar.

by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on April 14, 2024

A hallway in the Greenbriar bunker, lined with steel and cement walls

The Town That Kept Its Nuclear Bunker a Secret for Three Decades

The people of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, helped keep the Greenbrier resort's bunker—designed to hold the entirety of Congress—hidden for 30 years.

by Emily Matchar via Smithsonian Magazine on April 9, 2024

The Civic Arena that hosted basketball teams from 1961-1972.

Pittsburgh Was Briefly a Basketball Town. Could It Happen Again?

Connie Hawkins overcame scandal and setbacks to star for the Pittsburgh Pipers, leading them to an ABA title, paving the way for NBA reforms.

by Jonathan Burdick via Pittsburgh City Paper on April 1, 2024

Orange cider booth at the World's Fair.

The Hottest Drink of the 1893 World's Fair Was an Artificial Orange 'Cider'

"You're drinking something that some guy just cobbled together out of Lake Michigan water and food dye.”

by Anne Ewbank via Atlas Obscura on March 25, 2024

Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

The Wild History of “Lesser of Two Evils” Voting

For as long as Americans have been subjected to lousy candidates, they’ve been told to suck it up and vote for one of them.

by Ginny Hogan via The Nation on March 19, 2024

Oscar Wilde

“A Nation of Lunatics.” What Oscar Wilde Thought About America

On the Irish writer’s grand tour of the Gilded Age United States.

by Rob Marland via Literary Hub on March 11, 2024

Title page of the "Manual of the Corporation of The City of New York."

The Bittersweet Legacy Of David T. Valentine

Valentine devoted his time to writing the Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York. These were annual compendiums of data about the city.

by Claudia Keenan via The Gotham Center on March 6, 2024

Mead reading a book, against a psychedelic background.

One of Our Most Respected 20th-Century Scientists Was LSD-Curious. What Happened?

A document in her papers in the Library of Congress sheds new light on postwar research on psychedelics.

by Benjamin Breen via Slate on February 10, 2024

Refugees board an Air America plane in Da Nang, Vietnam, on Jan. 23, 1968.

Pensions for the “Deep State:” Republicans Push Benefits for the CIA’s Secret Vietnam-Era Airline

Marco Rubio and Glenn Grothman want to recognize the contribution of Air America, the CIA airline that supported secret wars in Laos and Cambodia.

by Ken Klippenstein via The Intercept on January 22, 2024

Cover of "Outrageous," with tomato on face of man holding microphone

Endless Culture Wars

On Kliph Nesteroff’s book, “Outrageous: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars.”

by Chris Yogerst via Los Angeles Review of Books on December 1, 2023

Henry Kissinger, 1975.

Henry Kissinger: The Declassified Obituary

The primary sources on Kissinger’s controversial legacy.

by Peter Kornbluh, Tom Blanton, William Burr via National Security Archive on November 29, 2023

The crime scene. A woman's body lies in the middle of a clearning next to the river, surrounded by coroners and police

Bad Shot, Mary

The mistress of JFK, there was a lot more than wealth, whiteness, and femininity to make Mary Pinchot Meyer a target of murder.

by Devin Thomas O’Shea via Apocalypse Confidential on November 22, 2023

Donald Trump, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, and Vince McMhaon at a press conference before Wrestlemania 23, 2007.

The Misunderstood History of American Wrestling

A recent biography of Vince McMahon presents him as an entertainment tycoon who changed culture and politics. The real story is as banal as it is brutal.

by Nadine Smith via The Nation on November 10, 2023

A young J. Edgar Hoover sitting at a desk.

When Hoover Met Palmer: Domestic Surveillance and Radical Suppression in the Early Days of the FBI

J. Edgar Hoover’s ascent within the FBI reveals the birth of an unprecedented surveillance apparatus that would survey US citizens for decades to come.

by Ryan Reft via Tropics of Meta on October 10, 2023

Pete Rose and Bud Harrelson fighting during a baseball game.

Pete Rose Remembers the Biggest Postseason Brawl in Baseball History

“You know how many second basemen or shortstops I knocked on their ass in my career?”

by Keith O'Brien via Intelligencer on October 8, 2023

The "fangs" of private equity dripping blood on the U.S. economy.

Conspicuous Destruction

Two books argue that private equity created an economic order in which getting rich quickly preempts other values, undermining companies and evading the law.

by Kim Phillips-Fein via New York Review of Books on September 28, 2023

A multi-colored print of James Garfield and his family in their library

A President of Many Talents

James Garfield is known primarily for being assassinated. But his life reveals the character of nineteenth-century America.

by John O. McGinnis via Law & Liberty on August 24, 2023

Margot Robbie in "Barbie" film.

This is the Real History of Barbie

Before the eagerly-anticipated film hits our screens, we take a look back at the story of the world's most famous doll.

by Marie-Claire Chappet via Harper's Bazaar on July 13, 2023

Hands placing silhouettes of witnesses onto a chart using tweezers.

An Offer You Can’t Refuse

How a mob statute metastasized.

by Piper French via The Drift on July 12, 2023

Basketball players resting on court

Game Changer

On the mismatched sporting advice of Clair Bee and John R. Tunis.

by Dan McQuade via Lapham’s Quarterly on July 10, 2023

Surgeon General C. Everett Koop holds a news conference on May 4, 1988, on AIDS.

As AIDS Epidemic Raged, a Rogue Reagan Official Taught America the Truth

The Reagan administration thought Surgeon General C. Everett Koop would put his faith above public health. Instead, Koop sent all Americans a mailer on AIDS.

by Alexandra M. Lord via Retropolis on June 4, 2023

CEO Eli Black (middle) talking with farmers at a lettuce farm.

The Banana King Who (Tried to) Put People Over Profits

1970s United Fruit CEO Eli Black got caught between the warring ideals of ‘social responsibility’ and shareholder gains.

by Matt Garcia via Zócalo Public Square on April 26, 2023

They Did It for the Clicks

How digital media pursued viral traffic at all costs and unleashed chaos.

by Aaron Timms via The New Republic on April 18, 2023

Collage of DNA sequence and scientists, reading "Your Child's IQ: What Role Does Heredity Play?"

Losing the Genetic Lottery

How did a field meant to reclaim genetics from Nazi abuses wind up a haven for race science?

by Padmini Raghunath via Distillations on April 6, 2023

Illustration of McCormick at his desk, hunched over a typewriter.

Hellhounds on His Trail

Mack McCormick’s long, tortured quest to find the real Robert Johnson.

by Michael Hall via Texas Monthly on April 4, 2023

J. Edgar Hoover.

A Biography That May Change Your Mind About J. Edgar Hoover

Behind his tough image, the longtime FBI director was a man of profound contradictions.

by Kai Bird via Washington Post on November 9, 2022

A faded beige map of New York from the 1700s, showing the city borders and street outlines.

The Manhattan Well Mystery: On America’s First Media Circus Around a Murder Case

The death of Elma Sands and the Manhattan Company.

by Sam Roberts via Literary Hub on October 25, 2022

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