Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
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Black-and-white still image from the film "Dr. Strangelove," in which a man is shouting and waving his hat in the air while riding a missile in flight.

Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was True

How Stanley Kubrick’s film “Dr. Strangelove” exposed dangers inherent in nuclear command-and-control systems.
Illustration with a 1950 Raleigh bicycle

Cycles of History: On Jody Rosen’s “Two Wheels Good”

A review of how author Jody Rosen depicts the history of the bicycle, mixing the personal with the factual.
Hooded person shining a laser pointer at an airplane in the dark

A Blinding History of the Laser Pointer

They can wreck your eyes, and they can land you 14 years in jail for shining one at a police chopper. But where did they come from?
Black and white photo of Elvis Presley in a recording studio.

Was There Anything Real About Elvis Presley?

Presley never wrote a memoir. Nor did he keep a diary. His music could have been a window into his inner life, but he didn’t even write his songs.
Photo of a memorial for the victim of the Unite the Right rally.

Archivist Report on Aug. 11 and 12, 2017

All the articles from the University of Virginia's student newspaper covering the "Unite the Right" rally, and the grief, activism, and reforms it sparked.
Black and white photo of Mavis Staples, looking upward, hands raised.

The Gospel According to Mavis Staples

A legendary singer on faith, loss, and a family legacy.
Illustration depicting a man with a sword drawn confronting a man and woman standing in a doorway in pajamas.

Family, Liberty, and Vermont: The Allegiance of Ethan Allen in the Revolutionary Era

He held multiple allegiances during the Revolution, all of which were connected or stemmed from the importance he placed on familial self-preservation.
Illustration overlaying an image of Lucille Brown and a group of women over an image of Howard University

Higher Ed and the Policing of Memory

Why universities must help lead the battle to defend and expand critical race theory.
Black-and-white glamour photo of Josephine Baker, smiling in her stage attire.

Josephine Baker Was the Star France Wanted—and the Spy It Needed

When the night-club sensation became a Resistance agent, the Nazis never realized what she was hiding in the spotlight.
Mural of Black Panthers with raised fists.

Earl Anthony and the Black Panther Party

“I came to the realization that taking to the streets to fight social revolution in this country is like ‘spitting in the wind; it will fly back into your face.”
Stock traders watching Jerome Powell in conference on screens in the New York Stock Exchange.
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Seeing Americans as Consumers Threatens the Fairness of Our Economy

The Federal Reserve keeps increasing interest rates to try to bring prices down — but that may erase gains by non-White workers.
Silhouettes of people dancing at a techno music festival with colorful laser lights.

Machine Soul

A history of techno.
US Airforce nurses treating patients.

The Better Roe: The Case of Struck v. Secretary of Defense

When Susan Struck fought being discharged for pregnancy from the US Air Force, it brought the right to choose into a different light.
Black and white image of people observing photographs hanging on the wall at an exhibition in Oaxaca in 1999 about magonismo.

The Mexican Revolution as U.S. History

Making the case for why U.S. history only makes sense when told as a binational story.
Cover of "Brothers in Arms: A Journey From War to Peace" by William Broyles, Jr., featuring the silhouette of a Vietnam War soldier in the sunset.

The War that Won't Go Away

The question of whether or not one served, or was willing to serve, or would be willing to serve, goes deeper than name-calling and allegations of draft dodging.
Illustration of Vincent Chin on red background surrounded by smaller illustrations of videographers, protestors, and grieving people

The Many Afterlives of Vincent Chin

Chin’s killing, 40 years ago, has inspired documentaries, young-adult books, and countless works of scholarship. What do we want from his story, and the people who tell it?
Painting of the mouth of a cave.

Down in the Hole: Outlaw Country and Outlaw Culture

Country music has often stood, as it were, with one foot in and one foot out of the cave.
Man training under water with scuba gear.

Remembering the World War II Frogmen Who Trained in Secret off the California Coast

Recruits learned the arts of infiltration, sabotage, and survival at a hidden base on Santa Catalina Island.
Black and white photo of The National Negro Business League with founder Booker T. Washington.

Identity Politics and Elite Capture

The Combahee River Collective and E. Franklin Frazier’s Black Bourgeoisie agree that the wealthy and powerful will hijack activist energies for their own ends.
Overhead view of people walking around in the Mall of America

The Most American Form of Architecture Isn’t Going Anywhere

A new book challenges the dominant narrative that malls are dying.
Drawing of two laborers in a vast agricultural field with a farmhouse in the background.

A Family From High Plains

Sappony tobacco farmers across generations, and across state borders, when North Carolina and Virginia law diverged on tribal recognition, education, and segregation.
Side by side photos of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump.

How Republicans Went From the Party of Lincoln to the Party of Trump, in 13 Maps

It's been a remarkable transformation over 162 years.
Picture of a young woman with cannabis leaves.

The Pot to Prison Pipeline

How does a plant become a crime?
An 1878 trademark registration for Miasmine, an ineffective anti-malaria medicine. (Library of Congress)

In the 1880s, D.C.’s Doctors Argued About Malaria and Its Cause

Malaria — literally, if not scientifically, "bad air" — once claimed Washingtonians by the score. So why did some doctors believe it wasn't real?
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on stage giving a presentation below a screen showing pictures of people connected by the Facebook network.

How Capitalism—Not a Few Bad Actors—Destroyed the Internet

Twenty-five years of neoliberal political economy are to blame for today's regime of surveillance advertising, and only public policy can undo it.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, center, and the cast of "Hamilton" at the Richard Rodgers Theater.

Father Worship

Hamilton is less a new vision of the past than a translation of the sacred stories of American civil religion into the vernacular.
A street with a sign above it reading "Welcome to San Bernardino."

California's Never-Ending Secessionist Movement — and its Grim Ties To Slavery in the State

San Bernardino County may explore seceding from California. Many of the earliest separatists wanted to transform Southern California into a slave state.
Woman placing groceries on conveyor belt at grocery store
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The Way to Fight Inflation Without Rising Interest Rates and a Recession

History shows that targeted price caps work when accompanied by a public campaign.
Photograph of blues singer Robert Johnson, playing guitar, 1936.

Searching for Robert Johnson

In the seven decades since his mysterious death, bluesman Robert Johnson’s legend has grown.
Book cover with the title "Baby Boy Born Birthplace Blues" superimposed on a photo of a man lying down with his cheek on the ground.

Baby Boy Born Birthplace Blues

"The blues was born on a riverboat between Louisville and New Albany, along those docks, in the 1890s. I mean, the blues was born nowhere, of course. Or it was born many places."
A microphone surrounded by multiple pairs of eyes against a brick background.

Cut Me Loose

A personal account of how one young woman travels to South Carolina in search of her family history and freedom narrative.
Three Black men in a field wearing Baltimore Black Sox uniforms.

Bill Bruton’s Fight for the Full Integration of Baseball

Louis Moore discusses Bill Bruton and the erasure of his activism towards integration in Major League Baseball.
Illustration by Nilé Livingston of the many flags used throughout America as symbols of freedom, patriotism, and protest.

Scars and Stripes

Philadelphia gave America its flag, along with other enduring icons of nationhood. But for many, the red, white and blue banner embodies a legacy of injustice.
This editorial cartoon from a January 1879 edition of Harper's Weekly depicting a white man misspelling words on a sign announcing Black voters must pass a literacy test, while a Black man looks on laughing.

The Racial History Of The 'Grandfather Clause'

Companies and individuals are considered grandfathered and exempt from new sets of regulations all the time. But the term and the concept dates to a darker era.
Illustration of a Black man in an overcoat and a winter hat with earflaps.

Homeland Insecurity

Mystery sorrounds the life of alumnus Homer Smith, who spent decades on an international odyssey to find a freedom in a place he could call home.
Memorial to cancer patients of the Radiation Effects Study, 1960-1972

Radiation, Race, and Recognition

Accountability is crucial as we remember the individuals and communities harmed by our institutions and call for retroactive justice.
The sun shining through the crown of a lone tree in an agricultural field.

What The Mississippi Delta Teaches Me About Home—And Hope

Finding struggle and resilience on a road trip through the birthplace of the blues.
Painting of Abraham Lincoln

The Election in November

The Atlantic’s editor endorsed Abraham Lincoln for presidency in the 1860 election, correctly predicting it would prove to be “a turning-point in our history.”
Collage drawing of elements of US-Cuba relations, including JFK, Castro, missiles, a journalist at a typewriter, and soldiers from both sides carrying guns.

Cuba Libre

Covering the island has been a central concern for The Nation since the beginning—producing scoops, aiding diplomacy, and pushing for a change in policy.
Painting by Chima Ikegwuonu depicting the Igbo Landing mass suicide, with a slave trader standing over handcuffed Igbo men on a ship, while other Igbo men resolutely entering the water.

Igbo Landing Mass Suicide

In 1803 one of the largest mass suicides of enslaved people took place when Igbo captives from what is now Nigeria were taken to the Georgia coast.
1958 photo of an Arab American father and daughter on a sidewalk.

From the Colts' Stadium to The Statehouse, Indianapolis Has a Rich Arab American History

From the Statehouse to Lucas Oil Stadium, Arab American immigrants have made contributions across Indianapolis, according to IUPUI's Edward Curtis.
Person typing on keyboard at computer decorated with pro-choice pins.

A Forgotten 1990s Law Could Make It Illegal to Discuss Abortion Online

The provision, which makes it a felony to talk about abortion online, has been on hold since the Clinton administration. Could it be enforced in the future?
4 photo collage illustrating the partnership between the White League and the Ku Klux Klan in engaging in vigilante terrorism and racial violence

Colfax, Cruikshank, and the Latter-Day War on Reconstruction

Unearthing the deep roots of racialized voter suppression—and explaining how they shape ballot access today.
Weird Al Yankovic, Lizzo, and Beyonce with their mouths covered by black bars indicating censorship.

The Surprising History of the Slur Beyoncé and Lizzo Both Cut From Their New Albums

How did the controversial term go from middle-school slang to verboten? The answer lies on the other side of the Atlantic.
Mammoth bones in the dirt

Bones of Mammoths Seemingly Butchered by Humans Found in New Mexico

A pile of mammoth bones offers evidence that people were living in the region as early as 37,000 years ago.
Human legs in the water with a shark under them

Did Shark Attacks Eat Into Woodrow Wilson’s Votes in 1916?

What shark attacks in 1916 could tell us about the midterms in 2022.
Photograph of walkway with trees in between two roads.

Eastern Parkway Was Never Meant to Be a Highway

The case for making the street more like the pleasure road Frederick Law Olmsted intended.
Photo of three of the Cherry sisters: one playing a bass drum, standing between two in awkward dance poses.

The Shaming of the Cherry Sisters

How “Vaudeville’s worst act” fought for fame and respect on the stage.
Black and white photo of Eugene V. Debs addressing a crowd at the Hippodrome Theatre, New York City.

Socialists on the Knife-Edge

American Democratic Socialism has deep roots in the very “American” values it is accused of undermining.
"Mademoiselle V...in the Costume of an Espada," by Edouard Manet, a painting of a woman dressed as a matador holding sword and cloth.

A Private Matter

Abortion and "The Scarlet Letter."
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