Joseph McCarthy

Fifty years later, Bobby Kennedy’s passionate, inspiring, and tragic presidential campaign still fascinates.

Revisiting Holfstadter's "paranoid style" in the era of Trump.

The government saw Red when looking at William Gropper's painting of the United States.

It had been around a long time before the Radical Right discovered it.

On Richard Hofstadter and the current assault on academia.

How William F. Buckley Jr. turned his father’s private convictions and prejudices into a major political movement.

Red Scare can be read as solid history of the years it depicts—and chilling prophecy of the years to come.

The political vision that William F. Buckley helped forge was—and remains today—focused less on adhering to principles and more on ferreting out enemies.

In his latest book, journalist and historian Clay Risen explores how the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy upended the nation.

Diplomatic relations, domestic repression. Plus: the truth about Joseph Welch, and a bit of family history.

The impact can linger not just for years but decades.

Defending academic freedom doesn’t mean exaggerating the threats to it.

In the early nineties, the country turned against the establishment and right-wing populists thrived. A new history reassesses their impact.

Many recoil at the thought of stronger political parties. But revitalized parties could be exactly what our ailing democracy needs.

On how Europe’s interwar period informs the present.

Powered by compressed air, the system transported millions of letters between 1897 and 1953.

In the past and present, librarians have fought book bans and censorship.

A far right politics that developed in the middle of the 20th century has prevented Democrats from gaining as they have in suburbs elsewhere.

The John Birch Society pushed a darker, more conspiratorial politics in the ’50s and ’60s — and looms large over today’s GOP.

News organizations air lies from political figures more often than you’d think, but for very different reasons than Fox News.