Excerpts

As baseball celebrates the 75th anniversary of Robinson’s breaking the color line, it’s worth remembering a man at odds with his own myth.

World War I saw the advent of chemical weaponry, and a mysterious chapter in the history of American University in Northwest DC.

Eavesdropping flourished after WWII, aided by legal loopholes, clever hacks, and “private ears”.

A new book argues that efforts to humanize war with smarter weaponry have obscured the task of making peace the first goal of foreign policy.

On the vibrant history of LA’s thriving Syrian American community and its unexpected links with Latin America.

In the 1920s, Syrian-Americans were compelled to prove their worth in a society where nativism was on the rise and citizenship often meant being considered white.

Aimee Towi Mae Tang’s Chinese American family never talked about the past. She decided to change that.

Marine insurance itself was a business that flourished during periods of war and uncertainty. It had a complex relationship with the British state.

Since its inception, the IPCC itself has been the target of corporate obstructionism.

A collaboration between advertiser Joseph Jacobs and the famous coffee company produced the classic U.S. haggadah.

Exponentially more enslaved Africans were forced to the lands that now make up Latin America rather than the United States. Where is their story?

A conversation with historian Gary Gerstle about understanding neoliberalism as a bipartisan worldview and how the political order it ushered in has crumbled. 

A review of how Dennis Rasmussen understands America's Founding Fathers and their disillusions with the American experiment.

For some Lebanese immigrants, religion was a comfort, providing a sense of home in an new world. For others, it was a constant reminder of what was left behind.

Daniel James Sundahl reviews D. G. Hart’s American Catholic: The Politics of Faith During the Cold War.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis displaced by war have settled in the U.S., their journeys spurred by tragedy and loss in the wake of 9/11.

"Urban Legends: The South Bronx in Representation and Ruin" is a vibrant cultural history that looks beyond pervasive narratives of cultural renaissance and urban neglect.

On the promises and perils of very recent history.

A look into how Malcolm X employed gospel rhetoric to critique the mainstream civil rights movement for catering to white Christianity.

Dueling was a dangerous, ritualized response to a real (or perceived) slight. It may also have been a means of proving one's social and economic capital.

What a new book and six companion videos have to say about the fate of Black classical music in America.

Thousands of Americans die preventable deaths each year. Why do we consider them mishaps?

Museums that harbor unethically obtained human remains are undergoing a reckoning. It’s about time.

While the awards have recognized achievements in rap, Black artists continue to face musical segregation.

Before Americans worried about government or corporate surveillance, 19th-century criminals took advantage of a new technology to steal valuable information.

Woody Holton’s "Liberty is Sweet" charts not only the contest with Great Britain over “home rule” but also the internal struggle over who should rule at home. 

How the team came to have that name and why it still persists.

The NYT identifies the 'religious fervor in the American right' — around four decades late.

Shaina Taub’s new musical follows Alice Paul’s tireless quest to win American women the vote.

The artist’s experiences in the Civil War and after helped him transcend stereotypes in portraying Black experience.

Is the Republican Party compatible with democracy?

You likely think of the American West as deeply conservative and rural. Yet history shows this politics is very new indeed.

A stubborn and surprising immigrant enclave, hiding in plain sight on the Lower East Side.

What obligation does the US have toward people who are uprooted by war?

"The Deportation Express: A History of America through Forced Removal" traces the historical roots and spatial routes of systemic denial, arrest, and removal from the United States.

An overview of historical scholarship and socio-cultural developments in America to explain how racism became institutionalized against Black Americans.

Navigating the line between historical records and mystic imagery to understand the Underground Railroad.

How and why did Johnson consider American military involvement in Vietnam a worthwhile cause that would benefit American interests and American lives?

We don’t need to overanalyze it. It came down to genuine solidarity that the Amazon Labor Union organizing committee built among themselves and their co-workers.

On Martin Luther King's use of radical ideas to create an understanding of the history of America.

The US Civil War was a revolutionary upheaval that crushed slavery and stoked hopes of a broader emancipation against the rule of property.

While the world’s fastest-growing religious faith offers material benefits and psychological uplift to many, it also pushes a reactionary political agenda.

The killing of three civil-rights workers in Neshoba County, Mississippi, in 1964 changed America.

The actions of one New Jersey royal governor demonstrate a rare case of impartial justice for Native Americans.

A story born in blood.

Automation didn’t start in the age of robots and microchips, but can be traced back to the late 19th century glass industry and its skilled glass workers.

The key witness in Clarence Thomas’s nomination process discusses how sex and race shaped the new Justice’s experience, and her own.

In a new exhibit, Winslow Homer, once seen as the oracle of the nation’s innocence, is recast as a poet of conflict.

In Early America, some prestigious residents advocated for the replacement of cane sugar, supplied by enslaved workers, with maple sugar from family farms.

A new book juxtaposes dominant narratives about motherhood, women’s autonomy, and abortion with the weirdness of ordinary lives.