Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
New on Bunk

What Tecumseh Fought For

Pursuing a Native alliance powerful enough to resist the American invaders, the Shawnee leader and his prophet brother envisioned a new and better Indian world.
American Imperialism

Warfare State

Democrats and Republicans are increasingly united in an anti-China front. But their approaches to U.S. foreign policy diverge.

A Possible Majority

A political history of the present moment.

The Origins of Policing in America

How American policing grew out of efforts to control the labor of poor and enslaved people.

We Have Always Loved Ranking Things, Particularly American Presidents

Douglas Brinkley offers a brief history of political listicles.

When Schools Closed in 1916, Some Students Never Returned

Research into the long-term consequences of a polio outbreak found that older students are at highest risk for harm.
A portrait of Olivia Ramirez, 22, a full-time nanny in Tulsa.

For the Osage Nation, Photography Has Harmed—and Healed

In rural Oklahoma, an Osage photographer creates portraits of resilience.
A drawing of a person with a facial expression of pain with "Simple Bodily Pain" written above

The Fifth Vital Sign

How the pain scale fails us.
An image of a mesmerist attempting to cure a subject.

Modernity's Spell

Why debunking mesmerism only made it stronger.
Reagan in car

What the Rise of Reagan Tells Us About the Age of Trump

Rick Perlstein's "Reaganland" charts the conservative counter-revolution that moved the US to the right.
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Bush v. Gore: How a Recount Dispute Affects Voting Today

The controversy surrounding the 2000 presidential election led to sweeping voting reforms, but opened the door to a new set of problems still affecting us.
Register to Vote sign
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Disenfranchisement in Jails Weakens Our Democracy

Hidden disenfranchisement is as much of a problem as long lines at the polls.
Jessica Serifilippi inside the Schuyler Mansion

Schuyler Mansion Works to Bring Clarity to Alexander Hamilton’s Role as Enslaver

Throughout his career, Hamilton acted as a middleman for his family and friends to purchase enslaved people.
A car being made in a car factory

Talking About Auto Work Means Talking About Constant, Brutal Violence

It's remembered as one of the best industrial jobs a worker could get in postwar America. Less remembered is how brutal life on the factory floor was – and still is.
A picture of Boston being modernized through urban development, construction is happening on several buildings.

How Did American Cities Become So Unequal?

A new history of Ed Logue and his vision of urban renewal documents the broken promises of midcentury liberalism.

Washington is Named for a President who Owned Slaves. Should It Be?

What's behind the name of the state? And who was our first president, really?
Vanilla Ice in front of an American flag

The Rise and Fall of Vanilla Ice, As Told by Vanilla Ice

Thirty years after "Ice Ice Baby," Robert Van Winkle is ready to talk about it all—his rise, his fall, and that infamous night on the balcony.
A boat landing in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Where the Waters Meet the People: A Bibliography of the Twin Cities

St. Paul and Minneapolis have a history as long, deep, and twisted as the Mississippi River.
Donald Trump at a rally
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Trump’s Rhetoric About the Election Channels a Dark Episode From Our Past

The only coup in American history came after scare-mongering that wouldn't sound out of place in 2020.
Words from Merriam-Webster's "Time Traveler"

Time Traveler by Merriam-Webster

An interactive feature that displays the new words that were used in print each year, going back centuries.

The Immigration-Obsessed, Polarized, Garbage-Fire Election of 1800

A madman versus a crook? Unexpected twists? Fake news? Welcome to the election of 1800.
A screenshot from the movie "You've Got Mail."

The Romance of American Clintonism

The politically complacent ’90s produced a surprisingly large number of mainstream American rom-coms about fighting the Man.
Picture of an AP exam sign

The Strange World of AP U.S. History

Born out of the Cold War, the course has a great contradiction at its heart: why do we teach history?
Men at a table surrounded by flags of the world.

Why Is America the World’s Police?

A new book explains how U.S. political elites sold the UN to the public as a route to global peace, while all along wanting it as a cover for militarization.
Police officer cleaning a statue of Winston Churchill

We All Think History Will Be on Our Side. Here's Why We Shouldn't Rely on That Assumption.

The hope for historical vindication is loud now but not new.

Cousins Like Us: Black Lives and John Maynard Keynes

Reflections on the famous economist through the prism of the author's own mixed-race family.

The Problem of Slavery

David Brion Davis’s philosophical history.

How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul

In the 1970s, a new wave of post-Watergate liberals stopped fighting monopoly power. The result is an increasingly dangerous political system.
A vista in Utah.

Walking Into New Worlds

Native traditions and novel discoveries tell the migration story of the ancestors of the Navajo and Apache.

“All the World’s a Harem”

How masks became gendered during the 1918–1919 Flu Pandemic.
A political cartoon of one hand holding another down on a gun.

“If Anybody Says Election to Me, I Want to Fight”

The messy election of 1876.
Descent book cover

Identity as a Hall of Mirrors

A review of "Descent" – a family story that blends the real world and the imagination.

Signs and Wonders

Reading the literature of past plagues and suddenly seeing our present reflected in a mirror.

The Unfinished Story of Emmett Till’s Final Journey

Till was murdered 65 years ago. Sites of commemoration across the Mississippi Delta still struggle with what’s history and what’s hearsay.

Built to Last

When overwhelmed unemployment insurance systems malfunctioned, governments blamed the 60-year-old programming language COBOL. But what really failed?
New York

The So-Called 'Kidnapping Club' Featured Cops Selling Free Black New Yorkers Into Slavery

Outright racism met financial opportunity when men like Isiah Rynders accrued wealth through legal, but nefarious, means.

Thirty Glorious Years

Postwar prosperity depended on a truce between capitalist growth and democratic fairness. Is it possible to get it back?

Can Biden Be Pushed Left?

History suggests that what you see on the campaign trail, or even in a candidate’s past record, is not always what you get from a president once in power.

The Framers of the Constitution Didn’t Worry About ‘Originalism’

History shows that the text is far more complex than the legal doctrine might indicate.
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How Black Women Fought Racism and Sexism for the Right to Vote

African American women played a significant and sometimes overlooked role in the struggle to gain the vote.

Making the Supreme Court Safe for Democracy

Beyond packing schemes, we need to diminish the high court’s power.

Explore 175 Years of Words in 'Scientific American'

Search a 4,000-word database to see how language in the magazine evolved over time.

YouTubers are Upscaling the Past to 4K. Historians Want Them to Stop.

YouTubers are using AI to bring history to life. But historians argue the process is nonsense.

wE’rE a rEPuBLiC nOt A dEMoCRacY

A political usage guide for a feckless commentariat.
A white picket fence

Why Does Everyone in America Think They’re Middle Class?

The “Middle Class Nation” and “American Exceptionalism” found each other late, and under specific circumstances.

How the 1619 Project Took Over 2020

It’s a hashtag, a talking point, a Trump rally riff. The inside story of a New York Times project that launched a year-long culture war.
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The Racist Roots of the Dog Whistle

Here’s how we came to label the coded language.

Grapefruit Is One of the Weirdest Fruits on the Planet

From its name, to its hazy origins, to its drug interactions, there's a lot going on beneath that thick rind.
Still from "Apocolypse Now"

How a Wagner Opera Defined the Sound of Hollywood Blockbusters

“Ride of the Valkyries” has been featured in hundreds of films, including 'The Birth of a Nation,' 'Jarhead,' and most famously, Apocalypse Now.'
merpeople

Why Did Renaissance Europeans See Merpeople Everywhere?

An excerpt from a new book that explores the threat of made-up monsters in the age of imperial conquest.
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