Memory

As we debate reparations, we need to get the facts right.

The New York Times should have done a better job fact-checking Appiah’s essay. Philosophy may be allegorical. History isn’t.

The Red Summer represented one of the darkest and bloodiest moments in American history.

Without accounting for the often-invisible work of others in his research, Robert Caro's new memoir is not so much inspiration as an exercise in self-celebration.

The Allied invasion of France was an important step in the war against the Nazis. But it was by no means a turning point.

"Although the lesson of progressivism took a while to sink in, over time Grinnell resolved to do whatever he could to forestall the sundering of his world."

In Jill Lepore's "These Truths," ideas produce other ideas. But new ideas arise from thinking humans, not from other ideas.

Congress had the final say on the design for the slain president’s monument. The competition was intense.

Lady Liberty was inspired by the end of the Civil War and emancipation. The connection to immigration came later.

What started as a solemn commemoration of dead Civil War soldiers has become a celebration of summer. Here's why that makes total sense.

If “living history” role-plays in the classroom can so easily go wrong, why do teachers keep assigning them?

Power and ambition in women are often hidden, buried, disguised, crushed, mocked, diminished, punished, or excoriated.

The Lee and Jackson statues were erected not to mourn their deaths, but to glorify their character.

In ignoring the messy realities of westward expansion, McCullough’s "The Pioneers" is both incomplete and dull.

Anna Jarvis spent years fighting the holiday’s commercialization, but that may have hastened its descent into Hallmark territory.

Hobsbawm saw his political hopes crumble. He used that defeat to tell the story of our age.

It's time to shift the social contract of education away from short-term job training toward long-term development.

Douglas Brinkley offers a brief history of political listicles.

The reparations struggle is about remembering that America was built on slavery, but also about fighting for all working people.

In Brazil, some descendants of defeated Confederate immigrants still believe the war for secession was a noble cause.

Why did I never recognize all the important and valuable stories my mother told me as "history"?

These collections of everyday objects are clues to strangers’ daily lives.

How and why a Los Angeles folk artist created a vast array of intricate dioramas to form the African American Miniature Museum.

Angela’s arrival in Jamestown in 1619 marked the beginning of a subjugation that left millions in chains.

The success and brilliance of the new PBS series on Reconstruction is a reminder of the missed opportunity facing the nation.

The author of a book on paramilitary white supremacy discusses the methods and ethics of researching racial violence.

Reflections from the author of a novel that does not shy away from the question of Lincoln's sexuality.

There were 22 Abrahams at the event, which began in 1990.

Unearthing the beauty in the wayward, the fiction in the facts, and the thriving existence in the face of a blanked out history.

The 45th president, no student of history, marveled at the first president's failure to name his historic compound after himself.