Scott Wasserman Stern

John Andrew Jackson spent a night at Harriet Beecher Stowe’s home as he fled north. Why do so few traces of his visit remain?

Eleanor Roosevelt’s tacit support for a program that jailed sex workers suggests the limits of the elite-led reform efforts she championed.

How corporations wrested creative control from writers and editors—to produce less interesting books.

A new history cuts against stereotypes, to show a region constantly changing—and whose future is up for grabs.

A new lawsuit builds on 50 years of history in environmental activism.

As environmental rights seem on the verge of a comeback, it’s worth remembering why they once seemed so promising, and why that promise remains unfulfilled.

From Stanford to Silicon Valley, a small town in California spread tech’s gospel of data and control.

Palm oil is in everything, but it is also enmeshed in global supply chains that rely on brutal working conditions and the destruction of the planet.

A new history of the environmental movement places too much emphasis on famous figures like Rachel Carson and shies away from confronting failures.

A new book examines explores the ways that an uncritical celebration of “good” gays and “good” gayness can cause harm.

A new history of Detroit’s struggles for clean air and water argues that municipal debt and austerity have furthered an ongoing environmental catastrophe.

Scientists have found toxic levels of the chemical at large. And some groups are making the case to produce even more.

June Holmes was in her late twenties, working as a social worker on Long Island, when she first heard about “this thing called AIDS.”

His time working for Monsanto and other polluting industries helped make him the fierce conservative he is today.

Heavy industry once drove Pittsburgh’s economy. Now health care does—but without the same hard-won benefits.

Fears about “undeserving” people receiving public assistance have deep ties to racism and the policing of black women’s bodies.

Naming the first people to fall sick often leads to abuse.

A new book explores the tangled politics behind a global addiction.