Patrick Henry

Did Patrick Henry Really Say ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’?

The Virginia delegate may have spoken those words on March 23, 1775, but some historians doubt it.
Slave auction in the United States.

How a Group of 19th-Century Historians Helped Relativize the Violent Legacy of Slavery

On the scholarship and intellectual legacies of Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, William Dunning and other academics.
Painting of Casimir Pulaski on a horse in battle.

Discover the Short Life and Long Legacy of Casimir Pulaski

On the first Monday in March, Pulaski Day festivities at Chicago’s Polish Museum of America honored the “Father of American Cavalry,” 280 years after his birth.
Engraving by Samuel de Champlain of himself and his Algonquin allies attacking the Iroquois.

An Expanding Vision of America

Major new books about the peoples who lived in North America for millennia before the arrival of Europeans are reshaping the history of the continent.
Shackles with a magnifying glass on the end.

How the Study of Slavery Has Shaped the Academy

Who decides how history gets written?
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

Chamberlain’s War

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is remarkable not only for his sacrifices on behalf of the Union, but also for the moral imagination that inspired him.
Screen projecting the logo for "Facing History and Ourselves."

A Progressive Education Nonprofit’s Silence on Gaza

Facing History & Ourselves, known for its model lessons on genocide, has angered staff and disappointed teachers by refusing to provide resources about Gaza.
Ken Burns speaking into microphone (left) and Donald Trump (right).

Ken Burns, Donald Trump, and the Lies that Bring Us Together

It may sound counterintuitive, but Ken Burns’ version of U.S. history actually has quite a bit in common with Trump’s version.
Protestors use the celebrated Hamilton lyric, “Immigrants: We Get the Job Done” to protest the first inauguration of President Donald Trump.

“The Premise of Our Founding”: Immigration and Popular Mythmaking

On the tension between celebratory rhetoric and restrictive policy surrounding immigration.
Colonial building on the coast.

1619 in Global Perspective

And why we need to study the history of slavery and the African diaspora globally.
A group of demonstrators at the Stonewall National Monument carrying transgender flags and signs.

No History Without the T

When the National Park Service removed trans people from the webpages of the Stonewall National Monument, it echoed one of the darkest chapters of the queer past.
Painting imagining Washington shaking hands with Lincoln in front of liberty's flame.

Praising Washington in Lincoln’s Day

At the time of the Civil War, many Americans revered the nation’s Founding Fathers, and both supporters and opponents of slavery recruited them to their sides.
1860 political cartoon depicting Lincoln as a "Wide-Awake"
partner

A Posthumous Romance of White Male Reunion

The history of deriving political meaning from Abraham Lincoln’s sexuality.
illustration of stack of books
partner

The Rise and Fall of Liberal Historiography

How historians changed their approach, from the 1960s to the present.

Trump May Wish to Abolish the Past. We Historians Will Not.

Commentary from the heads of two prominent historical associations on Trump’s recent executive order on “radical indoctrination” in schools.

What Happens When You Try to Make History Vanish?

The White House’s decision to delete a DOJ database of Jan. 6 cases puts those who seek to preserve the historical record in direct opposition to their own government.
partner

What Is the Role of the Historian?

Rethinking the job of history — and the American Historical Association — after the veto of the Gaza “scholasticide” resolution.
Members of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Daughters of Union Veterans gather in Colorado in the 1930s.

Veterans Visit an Idealized West

A gathering of Union veterans in 1883 sheds light on the country's vision of the American West—as a space for reconciliation and a prize won by the war.
A flag depicting a hand pulling back the American flag to reveal a Confederate flag.

Patriotic Education and the End of History

Or, a brief history of today's erasure of history.
Screen shot of artillery in the video game Fallout 4.

Fallout 4 and the Erasure of the Native in (Post-Apocalyptic) New England

It is not attempting to tell a story about Native erasure. It is not trying to tell a story about Native Americans at all. And that tells the real story.
Von Trapp family from "The Sound of Music," (1965).

How the Family From Everyone’s Favorite Musical Actually Came to America

And why so many people remember the tale so differently.

The End of Resistance History

What was the liberal #Resistance "Twitterstorian"? And what did commentators like Heather Cox Richardson morph into during the Biden years?
Colorful, brightly lit interior of Washington Cathedral.

Reclaiming Medievalism

Washington Cathedral’s break with Confederate memory.
Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan in "A Complete Unknown."

Timothée Chalamet Does Dylan

Despite Chalamet’s best efforts, "A Complete Unknown" is a cookie-cutter Bob Dylan biopic for a legendary artist who deserves something more interesting.
James Baldwin at work on his novel “Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone," and smoking.

Refinding James Baldwin

A fascinating new exhibit focuses on Baldwin’s years in Turkey, the country that, in his words, saved his life.
Beverly Gage with Joe Biden and others in the oval office.

Beverly Gage's Bizarre Apologia for J. Edgar Hoover

What’s going on here, and are we ever going to talk about it?
David Montgomery in a picket line during a 1955 UE strike.

The People in the Shop

A new collection of essays by David Montgomery shows how he used labor history as a means of grappling with the largest questions in American history.
Blair LM Kelley

Talking Black Joy and Black Freedom with Blair LM Kelley

“The world didn’t give It, but the world can’t take It away.”
A graphic celebrating the American Bicentennial, with the original flag crossing the modern flag, and Independence Hall next to the Capitol building.

The Revolution at 250: A Conversation

What are the most important insights historians have offered about the American Revolution in the decades since the Bicentennial?
Pedestrians walking in the financial district of New York City, 1949.

Brad DeLong’s Long March Through the 20th Century

A sweeping new history chronicles a century of unprecedented economic progress driven by markets and innovation.