Excerpts

It’s because the rapper’s life and work were a cascade of contradictions that we’re still trying to figure him out today.

The murder of independent Congo’s first prime minister, the subject of a new book, had lasting psychological effects on the whole continent.

The answer reveals grave robbing problems for America’s deceased leaders.

Who is counted by the census, how, and for what purpose, has changed a lot since 1790.

In her new book, ‘Prequel,’ she looks at a past moment of crisis that might help us understand both the threats we face today and how we can endure them.

The UAW's patient organizing cemented an alliance that would bear fruit for decades.

He expressed support for Israel's bloody invasion of Lebanon, saying the US would be similarly justified retaliating against Canadian cities for militant attacks.

What actually happened in one of the most disruptive episodes of the supposed Watergate scandal?

In Bush’s naïveté about the magic of elections, he ignored a crucial point about democracy.

In a new biography, the Velvet Underground front man embodies a New York that exists only in memory.

Louis Armstrong’s complicated relationship with New Orleans.

Two books argue that private equity created an economic order in which getting rich quickly preempts other values, undermining companies and evading the law.

His “Clash of Civilizations” essay in Foreign Affairs turned 30 this year. It was provocative, influential, manna for the modern right—and completely and utterly not true.

A 1990 law was meant to “expeditiously return” such items to Native Americans, but descendants are still waiting.

A conversation with the lead designer of the 1985 version of the Oregon Trail video game.

On the 85th anniversary of the first xerographic print, a collection of punk flyers from Cornell University provides an object lesson on anti-art.

Here’s why they are still fighting.

The murders of her Osage relatives for their oil wealth still reverberate in the life of Margie Burkhart, granddaughter of a central character in the new movie.

It is time to recognize the power that organized labor can wield to fight for environmental, economic and social justice.

A new biography examines the life of the abolitionist, newspaper editor, activist, and globetrotter.

To address these atrocities and treat Jewish victims, survivors, and families with dignity, we must confront Israel’s subjugation of Palestine.

How the gun became a cultural icon—and unmade America.

Was the American Revolution such a good idea?

Springsteen's albums offer a tragic-romantic view of the working class in Reagan-era America.

The musical culture of the New York metropolitan area, combined with themes of suburban life, suffuse the legends' music.

Twelfth-century peasants developed commons practices to survive domination. We could use them to reclaim our lives from capitalism.

In the 1940s, scholars struggled over truth in reporting, the marketplace of ideas, and the free press. Their deliberations are more relevant than ever.

President Biden’s SAVE plan isn’t going to rescue the tens of millions of Americans that together owe more than $1.7 trillion.

The abortionist Madame Restell is central to the story of how American women’s reproductive freedom was dismantled in the second half of the nineteenth century.

How family political dynasties in America came to be.

J. Edgar Hoover’s ascent within the FBI reveals the birth of an unprecedented surveillance apparatus that would survey US citizens for decades to come.

The complicated and visceral issue of how we preserve our history offers an opportunity for meaningful discourse.

How Black support for Zionism morphed into support for Palestine.

Innovators are using digital tools to tell stories of the city’s Black and Latinx history.

Martin Scorsese's new film revisits the murders of wealthy Osages in Oklahoma in the 1920s

Despite depictions of the Underground Railroad, escaping over land was almost impossible in the South. Thousands of enslaved people found allies on the water.

How the law became a staging ground for unrestrained war.

The rise and rise and rise of data.

You can't be neutral on a tour bus rolling toward the foot of Masada.

The early republic and the seventh planet.

The American Museum of Natural History holds 12,000 bodies — but they don’t want you to know whose.

Exclusive interviews with Daniel Ellsberg and a long-buried memo reveal new details about one of the 20th century's biggest scoops.

Conservative curricula are being pushed into tax-funded history classrooms.

From Bill Buckley to our 24/7 media circus.

During the New Deal, mass left movements and government funding spawned a boomlet in working-class art. For once, art wasn’t just the province of the rich.

Black prosperity has provoked white resentment that has led to the undoing of policies that have nurtured Black advancement.

Cliff Sloan’s new book explains how the Franklin Roosevelt-shaped Court wrestled with individual rights as the nation fought to save itself and the world.

A new book on the Clinton presidency reveals how it abandoned a progressive vision for a finance-led agenda for economics and geopolitics.

Writer Colin Dickey sets out across America to investigate America's haunted spaces in order to uncover what their ghost stories say about who we were, are, and will be.

The ongoing UAW strike is reminiscent of early UAW leader Walter Reuther — before the union and Reuther himself downsized their ambitions.