James Oakes

The 1619 Project claimed to reveal the unknown history of slavery. It ended up helping to distort the real history of slavery and the struggle against it.

In "American Slavers," Sean M. Kelley surveys the relatively unknown history of Americans who traded in slaves in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Did the Confederacy have a constitutional right to secede? And did Lincoln violate the Constitution in forcing them back into the Union and freeing the slaves?

It erases the fact that, for the first 70 years of its existence, the US was roiled by intense, escalating conflict over slavery – a conflict only resolved by civil war.

The history of the Atlantic slave trade after the American Revolution is a story of sustained efforts to suppress it even as demand for slaves increased.

During the 1860 presidential election, political parties dueled over the intent of the framers.

Although he did not openly endorse every one of the many precepts of the antislavery Constitution, Lincoln framed his positions entirely within its parameters.

Historian James Oakes offers a critique of the New History of Capitalism.

A new three-part PBS documentary explores the failure of Reconstruction and the Redemption of the South.

By naming a common enemy the Union Army was able to build and then steer a coalition of Americans toward the systematic destruction of slavery.

In his latest work of history, Edward Ayers captures daily life along with the military and political moves.