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How Cancel Culture Panics Ate the World
A set of peculiarly American anxieties has spread across continents.
by
Samuel P. Catlin
via
The New Republic
on
November 25, 2024
A Sudden, Revealing Searchlight
On Jean Strouse and the art of biography.
by
Ruth Franklin
via
Harper’s
on
October 23, 2024
The Complex Politics of Tribal Enrollment
How did the U.S. government become involved in “adjudicating Indianness”?
by
Rachel Monroe
via
The New Yorker
on
November 20, 2024
The Frenemies Who Fought to Bring Birth Control to the U.S.
Though Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett shared a mission, they took very different approaches. Their rivalry was political, sometimes even personal.
by
Margaret Talbot
via
The New Yorker
on
November 18, 2024
The Woman Who Defined the Great Depression
John Steinbeck based “The Grapes of Wrath” on Sanora Babb’s notes. But she was writing her own American epic.
by
Scott Bradfield
via
The New Republic
on
November 12, 2024
Gulp Fiction, or Into the Missouri-verse
On Percival Everett’s “James.”
by
Matt Seybold
via
Cleveland Review of Books
on
March 25, 2024
The “Fascist” With a Popular Majority
Donald Trump’s victory will inevitably reopen the “fascism debate.” But does a populist whose appeal cuts across diverse groups truly fit the fascist profile?
by
Tristan Hughes
via
Jacobin
on
November 19, 2024
The Rotting of the College Board
Testing is necessary. The SAT’s creator is not.
by
Naomi Schaefer Riley
via
Commentary
on
November 13, 2024
Why Americans Are Obsessed With Poor Posture
The 20th-century movement to fix slouching questions the moral and political dimensions of addressing bad backs over wider public health concerns.
by
Zoe Adams
via
The Nation
on
November 20, 2024
How R.E.M. Created Alternative Music
In the cultural wasteland of the Reagan era, they showed that a band could have mass appeal without being cheesy, or nostalgic, or playing hair metal.
by
Mark Krotov
via
The New Yorker
on
November 13, 2024
What’s the Difference Between a Rampaging Mob and a Righteous Protest?
From the French Revolution to January 6th, crowds have been heroized and vilified. Now they’re a field of study.
by
Adam Gopnik
via
The New Yorker
on
November 18, 2024
The Right Uses College Campuses as Its Training Grounds
Conservatives love to bemoan their supposed status as oppressed minorities in universities. But the college campus has long been a key site for the Right.
by
Scott Wasserman Stern
via
Jacobin
on
August 17, 2023
Friend of the Family
Jean Strouse explores the relationship between the Anglo-Jewish Wertheimers and John Singer Sargent, who painted twelve portraits of them.
by
Ruth Bernard Yeazell
via
New York Review of Books
on
October 31, 2024
FDR’s Compliant Justices
The Supreme Court’s deference to FDR during World War II resulted in unjustifiable ethical breaches.
by
Jed S. Rakoff
via
New York Review of Books
on
November 14, 2024
Between The Many and The One
Stephanie Mueller´s book sheds light on the percieved death of liberalism and the fear of corporations.
by
Kevin Musgrave
via
The New Rambler
on
September 29, 2023
States’ Rights or Inalienable Rights?
Some early progressives may have been advocates of states’ rights, but they misunderstood the philosophy of the American Founding.
by
Samuel Postell
via
Law & Liberty
on
November 13, 2024
How a Mid-Century Paramour Became a Democratic Power Broker
Churchill weaponized her powers of seduction—but Pamela Harriman came into her own when she brought her glamour to Washington.
by
Margaret Talbot
via
The New Yorker
on
September 16, 2024
Today’s Echoes of the First ‘America First’
Charles Lindbergh’s ideology prefigured Donald Trump’s—and was rightly disgraced.
by
Casey Michel
via
The Bulwark
on
November 13, 2024
In the 1970s, the Left Put a Good Crisis to Waste
In "Counterrevolution," Melinda Cooper reads the 1970s economic crisis as an elite revolt rather than proof of the New Deal order’s unsustainability.
by
Scott Aquanno
,
Stephen Maher
via
Jacobin
on
October 24, 2024
Ralph Ellison’s Alchemical Camera
The novelist's aestheticizing impulse contrasts with the relentless seriousness of his observations and critiques of American society.
by
Jed Perl
via
New York Review of Books
on
October 17, 2024
A Dark Reminder of What American Society Has Been and Could Be Again
How an obsessive hatred of immigrants and people of color and deep-seated fears about the empowerment of women led to the Klan’s rule in Indiana.
by
Annette Gordon-Reed
via
The New Yorker
on
November 9, 2024
Before Operation Dixie
What the failed Southern labor movement teaches us about the rightward shift in US politics.
by
Joe William Trotter Jr.
via
Dissent
on
December 16, 2020
The Political Afterlife of Paradise Lost
From white supremacists to black activists, readers have sought moral legitimacy in Milton’s epic poem.
by
Lucy Hughes-Hallett
via
New Statesman
on
November 7, 2024
The Amazing, Disappearing Johnny Carson
Carson pioneered a new style of late-night hosting—relaxed, improvisatory, risk-averse, and inscrutable.
by
Isaac Butler
via
The New Yorker
on
November 6, 2024
American Feudalism
A liberalism that divides humanity into a master class and a slave class deserves an asterisk as “white liberalism.”
by
Paul Crider
via
Liberal Currents
on
October 2, 2024
God’s Directive
In the wake of the September 11 attacks, evangelical American missionaries followed military tanks into Afghanistan and Iraq to convert Muslims.
by
Rozina Ali
via
New York Review of Books
on
October 31, 2024
A Fundamentally Anti-Democratic Tradition: Zack Beauchamp's "The Reactionary Spirit"
Where conservatives may seek to conserve their democratic systems, reactionaries by their nature seek to weaken or abolish them.
by
Matthew McManus
via
Liberal Currents
on
October 14, 2024
The Abolitionist Titan You’ve Never Heard Of
John Rankin, minister and fierce abolitionist, is a man worth remembering in our moment.
by
Isaac Willour
via
Law & Liberty
on
November 8, 2024
A Prudent First Amendment
Often, the proper scope of the First Amendment can be determined only by considering both text and context.
by
David Lewis Schaefer
via
Law & Liberty
on
November 7, 2024
The Reactionary Bind
In assessing the rise of the global anti-democracy movement, the United States must look inward as well as outward.
by
Kim Phillips-Fein
via
Democracy Journal
on
October 21, 2024
How the Irish Became Everything
Two new books explore the messy complexities of immigration—from the era of Lincoln to Irish New York.
by
Tom Deignan
via
Commonweal
on
November 1, 2024
The Crime of Human Movement
Two recent books about our immigration system reveal its long history of exploiting vulnerable individuals for financial gain.
by
Coco Fusco
via
New York Review of Books
on
October 31, 2024
The Parenting Panic
Contrary to both far right and mainstream center-left, there’s no epidemic of chosen childlessness.
by
Aaron Bady
via
Boston Review
on
October 30, 2024
Did the Witch Trials Ever Truly Come to an End?
Marion Gibson’s research rigorously traces the legal and human aspects of the trials through today.
by
AX Mina
via
Hyperallergic
on
October 30, 2024
Two Americas?
Heather Cox Richardson argues that there are two Americas: one interested in equality, the other in hierarchy. But it's not that simple.
by
Nicholas Misukanis
via
Commonweal
on
August 6, 2024
Bookselling Out
“The Bookshop” tells the story of American bookstores in thirteen types. Its true subject is not how bookstore can survive, but how they should be.
by
Dan Sinykin
via
The Baffler
on
October 16, 2024
Searching for the Elusive Man Who Inspired Uncle Tom’s Cabin
John Andrew Jackson spent a night at Harriet Beecher Stowe’s home as he fled north. Why do so few traces of his visit remain?
by
Scott Wasserman Stern
via
The New Republic
on
October 24, 2024
Whose Ronald Reagan?
Fighting over the legacy of a conservative hero in the era of Trump.
by
Susan B. Glasser
via
Foreign Affairs
on
October 22, 2024
Drink Like a Founding Father
Make one of President George Washington's favorite cocktails.
by
Diana Hubbell
via
Atlas Obscura
on
October 21, 2024
American Horror Stories
It just might be the great American art form. You can thank the residents of Salem for that.
by
Laura J. Miller
via
Slate
on
October 19, 2024
Toward a Christian Postliberal Left
A truly Christian postliberalism would imagine and enact an alternative modernity with a different standard of progress.
by
Eugene McCarraher
via
Commonweal
on
October 22, 2024
What Does the United States Owe Central America?
A new work of nonfiction revives a history that some would sooner see forgotten.
by
Gus Bova
via
The Texas Observer
on
January 22, 2024
The Love of Monopoly
Why did the U.S. allow its national communications markets to be run by expansive monopolists?
by
Tim Wu
via
The New Republic
on
May 19, 2011
Amid a Revival of Anti-Monopoly Sentiment, a New Book Traces Its History
Matt Stoller charts the shifts in American attitudes toward corporate consolidation.
by
Kyle Sammin
via
National Review
on
October 15, 2019
The Left Can’t Stop Wondering Where Bill Clinton Went Wrong. The Answer Explains a Lot.
Clinton’s role in decoupling the Democratic Party from mainstream labor, first in Arkansas and then nationally, had dire consequences.
by
Matthew E. Stanley
,
Paul M. Renfro
via
Slate
on
September 15, 2023
The Historical Seeds of Horror in "American Scary"
Jeremy Dauber's new book explores the themes and origins of the American horror genre.
by
Gianni Washington
via
Chicago Review of Books
on
October 7, 2024
The Forgotten War that Made America
The overlooked Creek War set the tone for America to come.
by
Sean Durns
via
The American Conservative
on
October 17, 2024
The Consultants Who Lost Democrats the Working Class
The rivalry of two men tells the story of how Democrats fumbled with their traditional base—and how they can win again.
by
Ben Metzner
via
The New Republic
on
October 15, 2024
Driving While Female
Is the car our most gendered technology?
by
Leann Davis Alspaugh
via
The Hedgehog Review
on
July 31, 2024
The Woman Who Would Be Steinbeck
John Steinbeck beat Sanora Babb to the great American Dust Bowl novel—using her field notes. What do we owe her today?
by
Mark Athitakis
via
The Atlantic
on
October 10, 2024
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