Louis Hartz

A new history argues that illiberalism is not a backlash but a central feature from the founding to today.

In assessing the rise of the global anti-democracy movement, the United States must look inward as well as outward.

America never really was liberal, and that’s not the right fight anyway. The fight now is for democracy.

A look at socialism’s far-reaching influence on American thought.

Richard Cándida Smith on Ian Tyrrell’s "American Exceptionalism: A New History of an Old Idea."

What gets lost when we view the American past as primarily a story about capitalism? 

Jonathan W. Wilson offers a constructively critical review of Wilfred McClay's American history textbook "Land of Hope."

Why did the historian come to fear the very movements he once would have celebrated?

The “Middle Class Nation” and “American Exceptionalism” found each other late, and under specific circumstances.

Warnings against "normalizing" outrageous political acts misstate the problem. It’s never the immediate present that gets normalized — it’s the not-so-distant past.