Excerpts

Why the framers created the Electoral College — and why we need to get rid of it.

“I was shocked to learn that Hispanic conservatives celebrate Cortes’s arrival in Mexico.”

Author Steve Coll on the humanitarian catastrophe that is now likely to engulf Afghan civilians, and how Joe Biden is shifting the blame.

What’s new about the controversy over the Alamo’s history, and how the way Texans tell its story relates to how Americans see each other.

“Wherever there is race reform, there’s inevitably retrenchment.”

Records tell the story of the decline of the patriarchy, marrying young, and pandemic fallout. Digitizing the data could reveal even richer tales.

Pulitzer-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed reflects on the battle for the past and the fragile state of American democracy.

In 1921, twenty thousand armed miners in West Virginia marched on the coal bosses and were met with bombs and submachine guns.

"What makes this conspiracy theory so damaging is its adaptability."

The “border” is not a line on the ground, but a tool that enables violence and surveillance.

On the intersectionality of enslaved women and common misunderstandings about slavery.

In the 1800s, they helped lay the groundwork for the anti-vaccine movement.

How garbage physically shaped the development of New York.

Alfredo Villanueva-Collado on his J.C. Leyendecker collection and the fascinating story behind this oft-neglected male image maker.

The author of “The Engagement" discusses the activists, politicians, and judicial figures who were at the forefront of the battle over same-sex marriage.

A historian on the unavoidable discomfort around anti-racist education.

A look at the evolution of the prison system in California.

Most Black Tulsans in 1921 were working class. But these days, it seems like the fate of those few blocks in and around “Black Wall Street” is all that matters.

A conversation with Richard Jean So about combining data and literary analysis to understand how the publishing industry came to be dominated by white writers. 

How we sit isn’t the only thing midcentury modernism sought to control.

How anti-homosexual policies throughout military history helped shape gay culture today.

Sasha Geffen’s debut book reveals that the history of pop music is a history of gender rebellion.

What are Latin American ideas about race, and how have they been formed in relation to the U.S. and vice versa?

In a biography of Dostoyevskian proportions, Sidney Gottlieb emerges as a tortured soul, penned in by personal compunction and a twisted sense of patriotism.

"Everything's sort of layered on a false understanding of history."

In a new book, historian Nicole Eustace reveals Indigenous calls for meaningful restitution and reconciliation rather than retribution.

Mexican-American workers have a long tradition of radical organizing, stretching back to the days of the IWW and the mid-century Communist Party.

A conversation between a historian and the creator of a new documentary short about NRA leader Harlon Carter.

A group of activists is calling attention to the legacy of slavery encoded in the names of New York City’s streets and neighborhoods.

April 15 may be Tax Day, but for some, it’s the 14th of April that’s notorious.

Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez discusses her new book on Isabel Cooper, a Filipina American actress and Douglas MacArthur’s lover.

Despite the Interior Department’s name, the agency has played a key role in the construction of American foreign policy and territorial expansion.

The famous activist reflects on what radicals like him got right and got wrong, and what today’s socialists should learn from his experiences.

Daryl Michael Scott on propaganda and myth from ‘The 1619 Project’ to Trumpism.

Swedberg's new book shows how prevalent concerns about mental illness were to the people of the early American republic.

On L.A. solidarity and the Black radical tradition.

On deindustrialization, the care economy, and the living legacies of the industrial workers’ movement.

A conversation about whether or not the legacy of liberty can break away from racial exclusion and domination.

Historian Elizabeth Catte traces the history and influence of eugenics from her backyard across the country.

A new book shows us the capital region's earliest years through the eyes and the experiences of leaders like Harriet Tubman and Elizabeth Keckley.

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

The pervasive mythmaking about the supposed wisdom of the founders has covered up a central truth: the US Constitution is an antidemocratic mess.

In so many ways, Limbaugh helped sow the seeds of the pathologies we're now living through.

With "A Theory Of Justice," Rawls became the most influential political philosopher of his time — just as the liberal agenda he supported was retreating.

A new book shares a cautionary tale of the American surveillance state.

An interview with Mary Pilon about her new book, ‘The Monopolists,’ which uncovers the real story about how Monopoly became the game it is today.

Failures inspire distrust of pollsters and calls for more shoe-leather reporting. But by the next election, we always come running back.

“Start-ups: they need philosophers, political theorists, historians, poets. Critics.”

Outbreak narratives from past diseases can be influential in the way we think about the COVID pandemic.

On the ten year anniversary of Aziz Rana's book, Henry Brooks interviews him on his influential book and what it might teach us about the legacies of populism.