Alan Taylor

Recent books by Woody Holton and Alan Taylor offer fresh perspectives on early US history but overstate the importance of white supremacy as its driving force.

We ascribe too much meaning to the early years of the republic.

Four new books show how different, and maybe also why.

The University of Virginia was supposed to transform a slave-owning generation, but it failed.

Many Americans could have gone either way during the Revolution.

Harry Washington fought for his enslaver's enemy during the American Revolution. Later, he migrated to Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone.

Americans disparaged the British as arsonists. But the rebels fought with fire too.

Harvard made headlines by announcing that it would devote $100 million to remedying “the harms of the university’s ties to slavery.”

An interview with Woody Holton on his new book, "Liberty is Sweet."

Nikole Hannah-Jones' new book sidesteps scholarly critics while quietly deleting previous factual errors.

There is no American history without the histories of Indigenous and enslaved peoples. And this past has consequences today.

A decade before Lewis and Clark, André Michaux wanted to explore the American continent. Spying for France gave him that chance.

Lepore’s framework insists that the “self-evident” truths of the nation’s founding were anything but.

Critics of the New York Times’s 1619 Project obscure a longstanding debate among historians over whether the American Revolution was a proslavery revolt.

A new book argues that the Revolution was fueled by the racist propaganda of Patriot leaders.

There isn’t much turnover with these selections.