Excerpts

The 19th-century whale hunt was a brutal business. But between the frantic calls of “there she blows!”, there was plenty of time for creation too.

Gwenyth Loose on the women who defied all expectations.

What happened on January 6 was profoundly American, emerging as it did from our long and very specific history. No one did this to us.

Some supporters of the violent mob scene at the Capitol proclaimed it was the beginning of a “Second American Revolution.”

Many of us are unaware of the special circumstances that eased our entry into American life—and of the bonds we share with other nonwhite groups.

A new history shows how the glut of US military bases abroad has led to a constant state of military conflict.

What the troubled history of telecommuting tells us about its future.

David Zucchino on the white supremacist plot to take over Wilmington, North Carolina.

As the country scrambles to distribute COVID-19 vaccines, the process has been hindered by many of the same issues that impeded other mass vaccination rollouts.

Invoking the specter of voter fraud to undermine democratic participation is a tactic as old as the United States itself.

Misunderstood historical imagery at the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

The bizarre sanitarium staple that became a spreadable obsession.

A Trump-Biden transition is sure to be scary. But it’d be hard to beat Buchanan-Lincoln.

Reflections on Alexander Hamilton, Alexis de Tocqueville, and the power of the presidency.

An image from the Capitol captures the distance between who we purport to be and who we have actually been.

But the belief that America previously had a well-functioning democracy is an illusion.

What began as a protest, rally, and march ended as something altogether different—a day of anarchy that challenges the terminology of history.

True democracy in America is a young, fragile experiment that must be defended if it is to endure.

Commitment to racial justice, not conciliation, is needed to save democracy.

While Wednesday's images shocked us, they fit into our history.

The story of the democratic movements that the framers of the U.S. Constitution feared and sought to suppress.

The rioters at the Capitol are part of an unbroken American tradition. Sweet talk about our “better angels” did not defeat them before and will not now.

We don't know which images will become emblematic of the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, but past movements have shown the dangers of a singular narrative.

Nick Tilsen was arrested for protesting President Trump at Mount Rushmore. Now, his legal troubles are part of a legacy.

The Texas senator claims to be moved by the spirit of 1876, but he’s just another huckster playing a risky game with democracy.

Jefferson revised the Gospels to make Jesus more reasonable, and lost the power of his story.

Born enslaved, he was elected to Congress in the wake of the Civil War. But the impact of this momentous step in U.S. race relationships did not last long.

Georgia Sen.-elect Raphael Warnock is pastor of the church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached.

The “gentrification-industrial complex” isn’t who anti-growth progressives think it is.

How an argument for segregated schools became a rallying cry for privatizing public education.

There is a strong economic case for raising taxes on the rich to help repair public finances following the pandemic.

A series of illustrated children’s books endures as a classic. Was it also the author’s attempt to come out?

The word “Plymouth” may conjure up visions of Pilgrims in search of religious freedom, but that vision does not reflect reality.

An examination of the excuses used to justify Andrew Jackson's violent expulsion of the Cherokee from their ancestral lands.

How decolonisation propelled the growth of low-tax jurisdictions, with lasting economic implications for former colonies.

Climate change and the colonial legacy of fire suppression.

Regina Bradley searches for truths about her great-grandfather and his murder.

An elaborate secret life was a necessity for children’s author Louise Fitzhugh.

Covid-19 and climate change are drastically intensifying insecurity in New Orleans.

Trump fans are better off as Americans.

The case for a Federal Writers' Project 2.0.

From Kentucky to Wales and all across the Atlantic, the enslaved and downtrodden got married – by leaping over a broom. Why?

The sale of the singer-songwriter’s catalogue is a reminder of his massive cultural legacy.

Donald Trump’s catastrophic tenure will be the nail in the coffin of the worst idea in politics: that the government can be run like a corporation.

Limited education on Keller's life has implications for how students perceive people with disabilities .

It was less about their asceticism and more about rejecting the world they had fled.

How the United States terrorizes the rest of the world, Baldwin realized abroad, echoed how it terrorized its inhabitants at home.

The celebration of Isabel Wilkerson’s ‘Caste’ reflects the continued priority of elite preferences over the needs and struggles of ordinary people.

Early in its history, the candy company made a strategic move to find its most successful market.

Connecting present-day environmental inequalities to redlining policies of the 1930s.