Person

Heather Cox Richardson

Bylines

Related Excerpts

A racist political cartoon depicting Uncle Sam as an educator teaching racialized colonial subjects in areas recently conquered by the U.S. during the War of 1898, the year of the white supremacist coup and massacre in Wilmington, N.C. and the mass disenfranchisement of Black Americans by the Supreme Court.

Heather Cox Richardson Shows the Importance of Holding Right-Wing Criminals and Frauds Accountable

Richardson’s work is as much about the contradictions of our shared past as it is an urgent call to action around the current authoritarian crisis.
Collage of Heather Cox Richardson and the subjects of her book -- FDR, Lincoln, and Trump.

We Have No Princes: Heather Cox Richardson and the Battle over American History

One interpretation presents the country as irredeemably tainted by its past. Another contends that the United States has also tended toward egalitarianism.
Group portrait of the first African-American legislators in Congress, 1872.

Reclaiming the American Story

To Heather Cox Richardson, the battle for our history is the battle for our democracy. And we may be nearing the endgame.
A black and white picture of Clint Eastwood

Cowboy Confederates

The ideals of the Confederate South found new force in the bloody plains of the American West.
A political cartoon featuring Uncle Sam holding a magnet.

America's Unending Struggle Between Oligarchy and Democracy

A new book charts the long contest between elites and the forces of democracy seeking to dismantle their power.
Barry Goldwater speaking at a 1964 rally, placing his finger over his lips.

The Western Origins of the “Southern Strategy”

The untold story of the ideological realignment that upended the nation.
Toppled Howitzers Monument in Richmond, VA

American Oligarchy

A review of "How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America."

Making History Go Viral

Historians used the Twitter thread to add context and accuracy to the news cycle in 2018. Here’s how they did it.

Why Boston Has A Confederate Monument — And Why You Can't See It Right Now

The state's only Confederate memorial, a stone on Georges Island, has been boarded up since June while the state ponders its fate.
Side by side photos of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump.

How Republicans Went From the Party of Lincoln to the Party of Trump, in 13 Maps

It's been a remarkable transformation over 162 years.
Nikki Haley, 2023.

Nikki Haley's Slavery Omission Typifies the GOP's Tragic Pact with White Supremacy

How the Southern Strategy of the late 20th century gave rise to the modern GOP.
The Freedmen’s Bureau drawn by A.R. Waud, 1868.

Social Welfare and the Politics of Race in the Post-Civil War South

The politicized rhetoric linking race and welfare has a long, ingrained history.
Political cartoon of the Lincoln Administration, reading "Running the 'Machine'", 1864.

Blues, Grays & Greenbacks

How Lincoln's administration financed the Civil War and transformed the nation's decentralized economy into the global juggernaut of the postwar centuries.
Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau on the phone, March 1985.

Calling Bob Morgenthau

The tensions between the Manhattan District Attorney and President George H.W. Bush.
Former President Donald Trump in Selma, North Carolina

The Historians Take a First Crack at Donald J. Trump

On the promises and perils of very recent history.
At the filling station and garage at Pie Town, New Mexico, in October 1940. Photo by Russell Lee, FSA/Library of Congress.

Cowboy Progressives

You likely think of the American West as deeply conservative and rural. Yet history shows this politics is very new indeed.
The GOP elephant depicted as falling apart

What Is Happening to the Republicans?

In becoming the party of Trump, the G.O.P. confronts the kind of existential crisis that has destroyed American parties in the past.
6 Black Americans celebrating Juneteenth in 1900.

Reunion, Juneteenth and the Meaning of the Civil War

What would it mean to define the Civil War as a necessary and crucial final step in the long, even more tragic history of slavery in America?

The Most Dangerous American Idea

No belief in the history of the US has been more threatening to democracy than the certainty that only white people are fit for self-government.
Black men confront armed whites in a Chicago street.

Tying Black Resistance to Communism Is a Time-Tested American Tradition

When modern conservatives associate activists of color with communism, they’re drawing on a racist history that goes back over 100 years.