Person

Joe Biden

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Patchwork collage of Joe Biden

All the President’s Historians

Joe Biden has met with scholars to discuss his presidency and likely legacy—but what are we to make of his special relationship with historian Jon Meacham?
Photograph of U.S. President Joe Biden (center, kneeling) posing with a young boy holding a guitar, in a crowd of people outside an Irish pub.

St Patrick's Day: Why So Many US Presidents Like to Say ‘I’m Irish’

Joe Biden is just the latest in a long line of US presidents to trace their ancestry back to the Emerald Isle.
Joe Biden speaking as the president elect.
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What Biden’s Attachment to An American Century Might Mean

Biden’s vision may conflict with promoting purported American values such as democracy and human rights.
Joe Biden walking in a church cemetery
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Joe Biden's Harshest Critics Are Likely To Be Some of His Fellow Catholics

The fight between Biden and conservative Catholics will be about more than policy.
The Lincoln Memorial.
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Channeling Lincoln’s Ideological Balancing Act Will Lead Biden to Success

In his time, the 16th president drew comparisons to a famous tightrope walker.
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Quoting Irish Poetry, Joe Biden is Making Hope and History Rhyme

Explaining Joe Biden’s fondness for quoting Irish poets.

When Centrists Sounded Like Bernie

If the Democratic Party won’t listen to the left, it should at least listen to itself from 30 years ago.

Militarize, Destabilize, Deport, Repeat

Plan Colombia functioned like an ideological laboratory for forever war in the twenty-first century.

Anita Hill and Her 1991 Congressional Defenders to Joe Biden: You Were Part of the Problem

Hill revisits the infamous Clarence Thomas hearings with five of the congressional women who supported her.
David Souter

Justice David Souter Was the Antithesis of the Present

His jurisprudence has been overshadowed by that of his showier colleagues but was a model of principled restraint.
Boston’s Faneuil Hall at night.

When Is History Advocacy?

Advocacy should not be a dirty word.
Vladimir Putin's eyes revealed from behind torn paper.

How America Wasted Its Most Powerful Economic Weapon

If world leaders had been clearer about the sanctions Putin would face, they might have deterred his invasion of Ukraine.
President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

The First Draft of the Ukraine War’s History

Washington’s policy-makers showed themselves more wicked and feckless than their Vietnam- and Iraq-era predecessors.

The End of Resistance History

What was the liberal #Resistance "Twitterstorian"? And what did commentators like Heather Cox Richardson morph into during the Biden years?
French Jesuits mapped the Gulf of Mexico, “Golphe da Mexique” in 1672 in an expedition lead by Father Jacques Marquette.

The Gulf of Mexico’s Long History of Colonization and Varying Names

Long before Trump expressed interest in a name change, conquerors have battled to claim the wealth of its rich waters.
Mugshots of Ethel Rosenberg in 1951.

President Biden Should Pardon Ethel Rosenberg

A newly released classified document shows that the National Security Agency knew Ethel Rosenberg was not a spy—and that the government executed her anyway.
Jimmy Carter examines solar panels to be installed at the White House.

Jimmy Carter, Green-Energy Visionary

As President, he told us that we needed to shift to solar power. We should have listened to him then.
Beverly Gage with Joe Biden and others in the oval office.

Beverly Gage's Bizarre Apologia for J. Edgar Hoover

What’s going on here, and are we ever going to talk about it?
American Indian children in boarding school.

More Than 3,100 Students Died at Schools Built to Crush Native American Cultures

The Washington Post has found more than three times as many deaths as the U.S. government documented in its investigation of Indian boarding schools.
Nancy Pelosi standing next to a sign that says "Protecting America's Health Care."

UnitedHealthcare’s Decades-Long Fight to Block Reform

UnitedHealthcare, the health insurer whose CEO was murdered, has spent decades fighting and winning political battles to maintain the for-profit health system.