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Cartoon drawing of a child hiding behind a man.

How Robert Crumb Channeled Mid-Century Teenage Angst Into Art

Dan Nadel on the formative awkward adolescence of an iconic American cartoonist.
Painting by Earle Richardson titled "Employment of Negroes in Agriculture," 1934.

Uncle Tom's Cabin is the Great American Novel

Most countries take their popular novelists more seriously than America has. The term “Great American Novel” was literally invented to describe this book
Ronald and Nancy Reagan smiling and waving at victory celebration.

Honey, I Forgot to Duck

Reagan’s capacity to inhabit and generate legend stemmed from his own impulse to substitute pleasing fictions for inconvenient facts.
Burglar sneaking into the bedroom of a sleeping woman.

True Crime: Allan Pinkerton’s “Thirty Years a Detective”

Am 1884 guide to vice and crime by the founder of the world’s largest private detective agency.
Painting of Ancient Rome, by Giovanni Paolo Panini, 1757.
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All the World’s America’s Stage — Even Ancient Rome

Gladiator and Gladiator II have little to do with the Roman past. But they have a great deal to do with the American present.
Collage of Matilda Gage and good and bad witches from "The Wizard of Oz" and "Wicked."

The Feminist Who Inspired the Witches of Oz

The story of suffragist Matilda Gage, the woman behind the curtain whose life story captivated her son-in-law L. Frank Baum as he wrote his classic novel.
Donald Trump standing behind a podium at a campaign event with his family at his side.

It’s the Charisma, Stupid

It’s not whom you’d want to get a beer with, but whom you’d want to watch getting a beer.
Aftermath of the explosions at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine.

How Congress Is Written Out of History

Congress's role in shaping policies like the Affordable Care Act and exonerating Port Chicago sailors is often overlooked, overshadowed by the president.
A still from the Apprentice of Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump and Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn inside a car.

The Apprenticeship of Donald Trump

A new film examines Trump's formative years under the tutelage of Roy Cohn.
Soldiers in combat gear stand by an advertisement for "America's Army," a military strategy game from 2002.

Video Games Are a Key Battleground in the Propaganda War

When video games went mainstream, the Pentagon realized their potential as a promotional tool, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on war-based games.
Empty speech bubbles emanating from people in an old house.

Popular History

What role do we really want history to be playing in our public life? And is the history we have actually doing that work?
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Books That Speak of Books

How a subgenre of murder mysteries plays with the way real history is written.
The original cover sketch of "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go," by Richard Scarry, with cartoon animals in vehicles.

On Richard Scarry and the Art of Children's Literature

Scarry’s guides to life both reflected and bolstered kids’ lived experience, and in some cases even provided the template for it.
Audre Lorde

A Book That Puts the Life Back Into Biography

To capture the spirit of the poet Audre Lorde, Alexis Pauline Gumbs decided to break all the rules.
Collage of popular culture references from 2008 onward.

That Feeling You Recognize? Obamacore.

The 2008 election sparked an outburst of brightness and positivity across pop culture. Now hindsight — and cringe — is setting in.
Illustration of man throwing football to sports broadcaster.

Before and After the Contest: Wraparound Sportscasting Through the Ages

National Football League pre- and postgame shows have become a testing ground for novel technology in the waning days of linear television.
A freeze-frame of Eddie Murphy smiling at the camera in Beverly Hills Cop.

Bring Back the Freeze-Frame Ending!

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F spends its final moments on a thrilling cinematic trope of the ’80s, one that I would argue is due for a comeback.
A pixellated landscape of buildings, spaceships, and the moon form the background of the coverpage for this article, titled "How Sci-Fi Worlds Have Changed WIth Us"

Who Killed the World?

Explore science fiction worlds from the last few decades – and what these fictional settings tell us about ourselves.
Still from 'Chinatown' showing Jack Nicholson taking photo.

“Chinatown” at 50, or Seeing Oil Through Cinema

On the 50th anniversary of “Chinatown” and the beginning of the end of petromodernity.
Man in a swimming pool, with other swimmers behind him.

Just When You Thought It Wasn’t Safe…

How Wilbert Longfellow turned America into a nation of swimmers.
Four Black Marvel villains.

Marvel's Black Villain Era

The question of villainy has always been a complicated issue for African Americans in film.
A photograph of the author's brother, Steve, playing pool.

Imperfecta

Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the emerging era of gene editing.
Sailors singing a sea shanty.

There’s No Such Thing as “Just a Song”

What we can learn from the history of maritime folk music.
Marlon Brando on the set of 'One-Eyed Jacks,' 1961.

Brando Unmatched

The legendary actor left a mark in both film history and an industry fraught with self-regard.
Solidarity book cover and photos of authors Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor.

Talking “Solidarity” With Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix

A conversation with the activists and writers about their wide-ranging history of the politics of the common good and togetherness.
A photograph of four people on donkeys from the late 1800s.

A Question of Legacy

Some of my ancestors had money, and some held awful beliefs. I set out to investigate what I once stood to inherit.
A photograph of John G. Neihardt raising his fists to box.
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A Tale of Two Visionaries

What roiled the mind of Nebraska poet John Neihardt with whom Black Elk, the iconic Lakota holy man, shared his story?
Collage of American Indian film characters.

Native Americans on the Silver Screen, From Wild West Shows to 'Killers of the Flower Moon'

How American Indians in Hollywood have gone from stereotypes to starring roles.
Bruce Springsteen performing live onstage during the Born In the U.S.A. tour.

Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska and Born in the U.S.A. Captured Two Sides of Reagan’s America

Springsteen's albums offer a tragic-romantic view of the working class in Reagan-era America.
Album cover for “Tim,” the "Let It Bleed" edition, by The Replacements.

The Replacements Are Still a Puzzle

The reissue of “Tim” shows both the prescience and the unrealized promise of the beloved band.

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