Excerpts

An intellectual history.

The Manson Family murders weren’t a countercultural revolt. They were about power, entitlement, and Hollywood.

Digital communications allowed transgender individuals and organizations the digital tools to organize and connect at a previously impossible scale and speed.

And justified the most extreme responses.

What happened after the destruction of Greenwood, once home to some of the wealthiest African Americans in the US.

Today, historical figures are held in deep suspicion, but refusing to acknowledge the heroes of the past diminishes our own sense of what is possible.

For generations, Native American children were removed from their homes and placed with white families.

The esteemed labor historian reflects on his life and career, including Berkeley in the 1960s, Walter Reuther, the early UAW, Walmart, Bill Clinton, and more.

The visa lottery reveals the inherent myths and contradictions at play in the US immigration system.

The meaning of coral jewelry in nineteenth-century America.

The 2007–2008 crisis was an epic clusterfuck. The rise of private equity has only made things worse.

The post-9/11 landscape witnessed crackdowns on New York City nightlife amidst efforts to increase tourism.

The president didn’t want to go too far on civil rights in 1948, fearing it would cost him reelection. But an obscure mayor changed the race — and his party.

Native to Paraguay, Ka’a he’e followed a circuitous path through Indigenous medicine, Japanese food science, and American marketing to reach the US sweeteners market.

A miracle cure for addiction may not be around the corner.

In her new role as antisemitism envoy, Deborah Lipstadt will attempt to fight a scourge of antisemitism that she seems to regard as incurable.

Why did Chicago become the headquarters of free market fundamentalism? Adam Smith offers a clue.

Penmanship was once considered a window to the soul. The digital age has closed it.

Public outcry over whistleblower William Morgan's disappearance gave rise to the Anti-Masonic Party, which nominated a candidate for president in 1832.

Heritage animal breeding has transformed living history museums and challenged both the public and historians to reconsider colonial Americans’ animal world.

All told, Arne overstayed his welcome at least four times — 1940, 1944, 1953 and 1954. It’s hard to say why.

Remembering the Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, and how she challenged American stereotypes.

Free blacks cared for those infected with yellow fever even as their own lives were imperiled.

The voice of Doctor Johnson, archcritic of the American Revolution, was constantly in mind for the Declaration of Independence’s drafter.

150 years of typewriter history in the city that invented the QWERTY keyboard.

Part of the utility of the game is how many intersections can be addressed, a Choose Your Own Adventure of lesson planning.

And the origins of the term “Kafkaesque.”

A foundational flaw of the United States.

"The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge"

Hawks may claim that uncompromising defense policies won the Cold War. But his pursuit of peace was more important.

Co-writer Steve Cropper and other collaborators take a new look back at the legendary song, recorded just weeks before the singer’s tragic 1967 death.

How French cuisine became beloved among status-hungry diners in the United States, from Thomas Jefferson to Kanye West.

It’s been 25 years since Puff Daddy went to the Hamptons. What’s changed?

Starbucks and Anheuser-Busch are the latest corporate targets of tactics honed by segregationists post–Brown v. Board.

James Armistead was an enslaved man who provided critical intel to the Continental Army as a double agent during the Revolutionary War.

As seemingly all of the American food media tripped over itself to create listicles around National Taco Day, I shook my head in disgust.

History shows that cities and towns have been poor stewards of what makes them special.

It’s about more than immigration.

In 1923, the U.S. Senate approved a new monument in D.C. "in memory of the faithful slave mammies of the South."

A minor incident gets distorted in order to provide a desired racial story.

Did Robert Moses ordered engineers to build the Southern State Parkway’s bridges extra-low, to prevent poor people in buses from them? The truth is complex.

Americans have long demanded — and regularly received — debt relief from legislatures.

The New York Renaissance, also known as the Harlem Renaissance, was the first Black-owned, all-black, fully-professional basketball team established in 1923.

Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News' coverage of claims that the company had rigged the 2020 election may soon become an artifact of a vanished era.

It was actually from a 1950s antisemitic and white supremacist magazine. Who cares?

The enduring Korean War.

Child labor was common in urban, industrial America for most of the country’s history. Now lawmakers are making concerted efforts to repeal statutes that prohibit it.

Mannahatta's fascinating pre-city ecology of hills, rivers, wildlife when Times Square was a wetland and you couldn't get delivery.

A favorite of Old Hickory, she made him seem kinder than he was. Why?

The Statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capitol wouldn’t exist without the artistry of an enslaved man named Philip Reed.