Barack Obama

Pulitzer-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed reflects on the battle for the past and the fragile state of American democracy.

Too much has been lost already. The glue that holds humanity’s knowledge together is coming undone.

The famed economist’s theories were embraced by Beltway power brokers in both parties. Finally, a Democratic president is turning the page on a legacy of ruin.

As a political reporter, I've seen four Republican revolutions — Reagan’s, Gingrich’s, the Tea Party’s and Trump’s — each of which took the party farther right.

For too long, we've ignored our real history. We must face where truth can take us.

How conservative politicians and pundits became fixated on an academic approach.

In a book and documentary series, Henry Louis Gates Jr. offers a wide-ranging tour of Black religion in America.

Globalism is out. Nationalism is in. Progressives who think they can jump aboard are dangerously naive.

A new history of the Cuban missile crisis emphasizes how close the world came to destruction—and how severe a threat the weapons still pose.

Technology can break down, but just as often with government tech, glitches are rooted in policy failures.

In becoming the party of Trump, the G.O.P. confronts the kind of existential crisis that has destroyed American parties in the past.

When I think about the 1870 riot, I remember how the country rejected the opportunity it had.

The residence staff, many of whom have worked there for decades, balance their service of the First Family with their long-term loyalty to the house itself.

Reckoning with the legacy of Japanese internment in the South.

Mass inequality in the Gilded Age thrived on identity-based partisanship, helping extinguish the fires of class rage. In 2021, we’re headed down the same path.

In so many ways, Limbaugh helped sow the seeds of the pathologies we're now living through.

As Presidents' Day approaches, historians look back at the most notable recent uses and misuses of "the Great Emancipator's" words.

Black civil-rights activists—and especially Black women—delivered on the promise of the Founding. Their victories are in peril.

A cat named Miss Pussy! A racist parrot! Benjamin Harrison’s possums, which he later ate!

A wide-ranging conversation with the philosopher on the white supremacist roots of liberal thought, Biden’s victory, and Trumpism without Trump.