David W. Blight

A new book argues that we misunderstand the forces that drove the notorious slave rebel.

The creators of Yale’s Civil War Memorial were more concerned with honoring “both sides” than with the true meaning of the war.

Lost cause narratives sometimes have been powerful enough to build or destroy political regimes. They can advance a politics of grievance.

In 1866, the famous abolitionist laid out his vision for radically reshaping America in the pages of "The Atlantic."

James Oakes’s deeply researched book argues that two very different readings of the 1787 charter put the United States on a course of all but inevitable conflict.

Old feuds remind us that history is continually revised, driven by new evidence and present-day imperatives.

What an old poem says about the search for justice following the Capitol riot.

Uncovering the truth about the 1898 massacre of black voters in Wilmington, North Carolina.

A whole vision of history seems to be leaving the stage.

Keep in mind what it meant to the people who created it.

Lessons from Frederick Douglass on the tortured relationship between protest and change.

Andrew Delbanco's new book positions the debate over fugitive slaves as a central factor in the nation's slide toward disunion.

The University of North Carolina agreed to pay the Sons of Confederate Veterans $2.5 million—a sum that rivals the endowment of its history department.

In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, he dreamed of a pluralist utopia.

An online forum on the life and legacy of Frederick Douglass.

On Douglass’s monumental life, the voice of the biographer, memory and tragedy, and why history matters right now.

David Blight reviews Ron Chernow's biography of Ulysses S. Grant.

Civil War historian David Blight reflects on America’s Disunion – then and now.

A century and a half after the Civil War, Mayor Mitch Landrieu asked his city to reexamine its past — and to wrestle with hard truths.

Throughout modern history, the millions forced to flee as refugees have felt Douglass' agony, and thought his thoughts.

More than 150 years after Appomattox, Americans are still fighting over the great issues at the heart of the conflict.