Person

Thomas Paine

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Could Tax Protests Defund the American War Machine?

Tax resistance has long opposed war and empire in North America, and could be a way to resist U.S. funding of violence in Gaza today.
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The Mutiny of 1783

America’s only successful insurrection.
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The Supreme Court’s Originalists Are Fundamentally Wrong About History

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Illiberal Liberations

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George Caleb Bingham, Stump Speaking (1853–54).

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While the concept stretches back centuries, it has garnered significant attention in recent decades.
U.S. presidential seal

Founding-Era History Doesn’t Support Trump’s Immunity Claim

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Signing of the Declaration of Independence.

How Christianity Influenced America’s Notions of Equality

'All men are created equal' coexisted with the understanding that not all were meant to be treated equally in life.
Swale Land, painting by Edward Mitchell Bannister, 1898, depicting nature.

Vacant Unsettled Lands

American thinkers consider what the already occupied West could fund.
American flag sign that reads "NWRO," "I support a guaranteed adequate income for all Americans"

Escape from the Market

Far from spelling the end of anti-market politics, basic income proposals are one place where it can and has flourished.
Illustration of flag against burning city backdrop

Did George Washington Burn New York?

Americans disparaged the British as arsonists. But the rebels fought with fire too.
Painting of Jedidiah Morse with the Illuminati pyramid symbol over one eye.

Why the Founding Generation Fell So Hard for the Illuminati Story

They looked at France and said: “Make it make sense.”
Line of TV vans on road preparing to broadcast the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.
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We Learned of The Queen’s Death Instantly. That Wasn’t The Case in 1760.

Back when monarchs had much more power—and news was far from instantaneous—it had major implications in the American colonies.
Whole Wheat Shell Pasta on Grey, by artist Rachel Doom, 2019.

Wielding Wheat

A new history makes a case for the world-ordering power of wheat.
Photograph of prison warden T. M. Osborne and two other men in a penitentiary hallway.
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Were Early American Prisons Similar to Today's?

A correctional officer’s history of 19th century prisons and modern-day parallels. From Sing Sing to suicide watch, torture treads a fine line.
‘Flight of Lord Dunmore’; postcard, 1907.

The Paradox of the American Revolution

Recent books by Woody Holton and Alan Taylor offer fresh perspectives on early US history but overstate the importance of white supremacy as its driving force.
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Sullivan Ballou’s Body: Battlefield Relic Hunting and the Fate of Soldiers’ Remains

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Black and white lithograph depicting the Founders signing the Declaration of Independence.

Have Americans Got George III All Wrong?

George III was a model monarch, whose reputation finally deserves rehabilitation a quarter of a millennium later.
Thomas Paine

Reframing the Story of Harvard’s Humanist Chaplaincy

The time when Harvard made an atheist their head chaplain.
Bell in 1980. He handled civil-rights cases, then came to question their impact.

The Man Behind Critical Race Theory

As an attorney, Derrick Bell worked on many civil-rights cases, but his doubts about their impact launched a groundbreaking school of thought.