Memory

Revisiting the wreckage on the centenary of the armistice.

What if America's inability to agree on its shared history—and how to teach it—is a cause of our polarization and political dysfunction, rather than a symptom?

I was raised to venerate Lee the principled patriot—but I want no association with Lee the defender of slavery.

An university press editor considers the merits and limitations of biography as a scholarly form.

Why the statesmen of the Roman Republic had such an influence on the patriots of the Revolutionary era.

Why is there still no memorial to Paine, the immigrant whose writing galvanized the American Revolution?

A review of Jill Lepore's new book, which she has called the most ambitious single-volume American history written in generations.

Architectural history in an era of capitalist ruin.

The roll call for the names of 74 African Americans sold into slavery by Nathan Bedford Forrest in Memphis was solemn.

The roots of the attacks on Elizabeth Warren.

Most of President Donald Trump's 20th-century predecessors expressed profound admiration for Confederate general Robert E. Lee.

A makeshift memorial in New Mexico dedicated to Hispanic Union soldiers "looks like just a taco stand, without any tacos."

It wasn't simply a matter of getting the history right.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on why it's so important to tell the stories of people who have fueled social justice movements.

In her groundbreaking new book, Monica Muñoz Martinez uncovers the legacy of a brutal past.

We’re not equipping children to become good citizens.

Though Donald Trump has made it into a catchphrase, he didn’t come up with the metaphor “drain the swamp.”

This is even trickier now that the language of critical thinking has been appropriated by the alt-right.

Teachers and students love "A People’s History of the United States." But it’s just as limited as the textbooks it replaces.

A new book bursts the bubble on what we’ve learned about the Civil Rights era to show a larger movement with layers.

Nearly two decades ago, historians embraced a hugely wasteful federal education program. It’s past time to reckon with that.

Locomotives. Not trains. Locomotives.

Today’s battles over Confederate iconography emerge, in part, out of the failure to address the centrality of slavery to the war.

Gaming in the shadow Charlottesville's "Unite the Right" rally.

Some historical sites have struggled to reconcile founding-era exceptionalism with the true story of America’s original sin.

Remembering victims of one of the worst workplace disasters in American history.

In an open letter, an encyclopedia editor stands behind the use of the term "white supremacy" to describe the UDC's work.

A century-old image and the film it inspired.

Each one flown outside the slave states amounts to an admission that the flag represents whiteness, not Southernness.

Why Confederacy supporters erased the legacy of one its most accomplished soldiers.