Power

What the debate about the Arctic Refuge tells us about science denialism.

A detailed look on Abraham Lincoln's political philosophy on slavery, ownership, and freedom.

Belknap’s downfall was his decision to abuse his authority to appoint “sutlers” or civilian merchants who ran trading posts that served military outposts.

NIMBYs were citizen activists who set a model for participatory democracy that YIMBYs should follow.

The 28th President of the United States enabled segregation and vile treatment of Black federal workers. He doesn’t deserve an image rehabilitation.

One woman’s crusade for democratic participation and political efficacy in the face of powerful institutions.

The transformation of Alabama politics in the 1960s and 1970s reflected the rise of a new version of Republicanism that Trump has perfected.

On how Europe’s interwar period informs the present.

One interpretation presents the country as irredeemably tainted by its past. Another contends that the United States has also tended toward egalitarianism.

Politicians from both sides used to agree on immigration policy. What happened?

David Beito has penned one of the most damning scholarly histories of FDR to date.

Alicia Puglionesi explores the damage white supremacy did to Native Americans and their land.

On Samuel Moyn's Cold War liberalism.

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

The right’s long and all-too-unanswered war on liberal institutions claims a big one.

Belief that schools must teach moral values is older than public schools themselves. But whose morals?

How the Southern Strategy of the late 20th century gave rise to the modern GOP.

James Longstreet became an apostate for supporting black civil rights during Reconstruction.

In early America, the soaring ideals behind establishing a new democracy were marked by cycles of progress and backlash.

What might appear to be common values about shared identities can serve not as a bridge but a wedge.

When viewing federal authority as a bulwark for civil rights against local tyranny, we miss what the U.S. government has done to sustain white freedom.

Excluding him, wrongfully, by a close vote of the Supreme Court could well trigger the next Civil War.

After Congress robbed Washingtonians of local and federal representation, decades of activism -- slowed by racist opposition -- finally succeeded in 1973.

Politicians have often sought to remedy educational panic with remedies that do more harm than good.

The prominence of politicos-turned-pundits is a product of cable news' turn to opinion commentary as a cheap and easy way to meet the needs of 24/7 coverage.

While many Americans gushed about the effectiveness of the ‘Destruction of the Tea,’ others thought it went too far.

For 70 years, the U.S. has failed to achieve faster trains—because it refuses to do what it takes to make them work.

Bayard Rustin tried to forge a mass coalition to deliver progressive change. His failure to do so in the 1960s tells us much about building one today.

The U.S. sought to rebrand nuclear power as a source of peace, but this message helped mask a violent history.

For decades, Kissinger kept the great wheel of American militarism spinning ever forward.