Power

A drawing of French military leader Marquis de Lafayette and General George Washington at the Valley Forge encampment of the Continental Army during the winter of 1777–78.

George Washington Was a Master of Deception

The Founding Fathers relied on deceit in championing American independence—and that has lessons for the present.
by Amy Zegart via The Atlantic on November 25, 2018

In America's Panopticon

Sarah Igo’s "The Known Citizen" examines the linked histories of privacy and surveillance in the United States.
by Katie Fitzpatrick via The Nation on December 6, 2018
Ku Klux Klan parade in Washington D.C., 1926.

Voices in Time: The KKK Makes Its Case in Mass Media

The author of "The Second Coming of the KKK" shows an early twentieth-century attempt to go mainstream.
by Linda Gordon via Lapham’s Quarterly on April 12, 2018
Coughing Vietnamese women and children emerge from a hole from which they had been flushed by troops of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division using smoke and tear gas during Operation Eagle's Claw at Bong Son on February 12, 1966.

Tear Gas and the U.S. Border

How did it come to pass that a weapon banned for military use was deployed against asylum-seekers on the U.S. border?
by Stuart Schrader via Process: A Blog for American History on December 6, 2018
A campaign poster featuring William McKinley holding U.S. flag and standing on gold coin (

America’s Tariff Men: Connecting McKinley to Trump

Trump says he wants to see us return to the high tariff days of William McKinley. Is history repeating itself?
by Zach Wichter via New York Times on December 6, 2018
Demonstrators rally in support of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) outside the Capitol, on the second day of a federal shutdown triggered by Democrats seeking a deal to protect DACA (Jan. 21, 2018).

Democracy Is Norm Erosion

Sometimes you have to break the rules to create a more democratic system.
by Corey Robin via Jacobin on January 29, 2018
The title page of Thomas Paine's Common Sense (1776).

The Attention Economy of the American Revolution

How Twitter bots help us understand the founding era.
by Jordan E. Taylor via The Junto on April 30, 2018
Thousands of Americans march near the U.S. Capitol August 28, 1963 at a civil rights rally.

This, Our Second Nadir

Why the Trump Era demands a better understanding of how racism got us into this mess.
by N.D.B. Connolly via Boston Review on February 21, 2018
Judge Clarence Thomas with President Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine, following a news conference introducing Thomas as the nominee to replace retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall, July 1, 1991.

The Power of Supreme Court Choices

A combative approach from George H.W. Bush put Clarence Thomas on the court and and has been embraced by Mitch McConnell's GOP.
by Linda Greenhouse via New York Times on December 6, 2018
Whistleblower and ex-CIA agent Philip Agee in the Netherlands on December 19, 1977.

The Forgotten Story of the Julian Assange of the 1970s

Decades before WikiLeaks, Philip Agee’s magazine blew the cover of more than 2,000 CIA officers.
by Steven T. Usdin via Politico Magazine on November 28, 2018
A wood engraving depicting fugitive slaves escaping from the eastern shore of Maryland (1872).

The Question Without a Solution

The horrors of the fugitive slave laws, the costs of union, and the value of comity.
by Alan Jacobs via The Weekly Standard on November 24, 2018
Wendelll Willkie at a New York City radio station, Oct. 26, 1942.

A Love Letter to an Extinct Creature: The Liberal Republican

“The Improbable Wendell Willkie” offers a look at how American politics might have been.
by Benjamin C. Waterhouse via Washington Post on November 21, 2018