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Edward C. Banfield and What Conservatism Used to Mean

Hard thinking on difficult and uncomfortable questions about how to keep everything from falling apart.
by Joshua Tait via The Bulwark on February 1, 2025
People in red and blue with campaign signs and posters, yelling at each other across a widening chasm.

Divided We Stand: The Rise of Political Animosity

Scientists peered into the partisan abyss. They looked to see why hostility has become so high between groups with different political leanings.
by Carl-Johan Karlsson via Knowable Magazine on August 19, 2024
President Joe Biden speaking at campaign event.

The Arguments for Biden 2024 Keep Getting Worse

No, "history" does not tell us that the Democrats shouldn't change their nominee.
by Eric Levitz via Vox on July 9, 2024
Collage of Samuel Huntington, his essay "The Clash of Civilizations," and 21st-century political figure.

Samuel Huntington’s Great Idea Was Totally Wrong

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.
by Jordan Michael Smith via The New Republic on October 19, 2023
Human legs in the water with a shark under them

Did Shark Attacks Eat Into Woodrow Wilson’s Votes in 1916?

What shark attacks in 1916 could tell us about the midterms in 2022.
by Dylan Matthews via Vox on August 4, 2022
Marine handing water to evacuees

The End Of Nation-Building

History offers a guide for why the American project in Afghanistan went wrong — and for the future of foreign engagement in the country.
by Timothy Nunan via Noema on August 24, 2021

How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future

When J.F.K. ran for President, a team of data scientists with powerful computers set out to model and manipulate American voters. Sound familiar?
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on July 27, 2020
Demonstrators hold a painting of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump outside a Trump rally in Phoenix, Arizona, August 22, 2017.

Democracy and Its Discontents

A consideration of four recent books that attempt to contend with the rise of Trumpism at home and abroad.
by Adam Tooze via New York Review of Books on May 19, 2019

Here’s Every Defense of the Electoral College — and Why They’re All Wrong

Most of the arguments for preserving our insane system are morally odious, unsubstantiated, and/or factually incorrect.
by Eric Levitz via Intelligencer on March 20, 2019

The Southern Paradox: The Democratic Party Below the Mason-Dixon Line

How the region switched from being the stronghold of one party to the base of its adversary.
by Michael Kazin via The Nation on February 21, 2019
A modern adaption of Howard Chandler Christy’s 1940 painting, “Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States,” with contemporary players on both sides of the judicial contest.

How The Federalist Society is Helping Conservatives Win The Judicial War

It isn’t just about Supreme Court picks. The group’s impact on the law goes much deeper.
by David Montgomery via Washington Post Magazine on January 2, 2019
Francis Fukuyama

Francis Fukuyama Postpones the End of History

The political scientist argues that the desire of identity groups for recognition is a key threat to liberalism.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on September 3, 2018
Political cartoon of the Populist Party python eating the Democratic Party donkey.

The Myth of 'Populism'

It's the transatlantic commentariat’s favorite political put-down. It’s also historically illiterate.
by Anton Jäger via Jacobin on January 3, 2018

The Troubled Rise of the Technocrat

The notion that a government’s chief obligation is getting stuff done is a fairly recent arrival on the historical scene.
by Timothy Shenk via The New Republic on November 20, 2017
Obama and Trump in the Oval Office.

Two Cheers for Polarization

We may not like it, but when it comes to U.S. politics, polarization may very well be part of the solution.
by Sam Rosenfeld via Boston Review on October 25, 2017

Samuel Huntington, a Prophet for the Trump Era

The writings of the late Harvard political scientist anticipate America's political and intellectual battles -- and point to the country we may become.
by Carlos Lozada via Washington Post on July 18, 2017

The Polarized Congress of Today Has its Roots in the 1970s

Polarization in Congress began in the 1970s, and its only been getting worse since.
by Drew DeSilver via Pew Research Center on June 12, 2014

Unpopular Mandate

Why do politicians reverse their positions?
by Ezra Klein via The New Yorker on June 25, 2012
A view of Wall Street and Federal Hall in the Financial District in New York City.

In the 1970s, the Left Put a Good Crisis to Waste

In "Counterrevolution," Melinda Cooper reads the 1970s economic crisis as an elite revolt rather than proof of the New Deal order’s unsustainability.
by Scott Aquanno, Stephen Maher via Jacobin on October 24, 2024
Fred Grey photographed in front of a book shelf of law books.
partner

The History of Segregation Scholarships

A narrative not of brain drain but of Black aspiration.
by Crystal R. Sanders via HNN on October 15, 2024
President Eisenhower sitting beside President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, September 26, 1960

The Foreign Policy Mistake the U.S. Keeps Repeating in the Middle East

In 2024, the U.S. faces some of the same challenges in the region that it did in 1954.
by Jordan Michael Smith via The New Republic on August 2, 2024
1880 chart of American political history

Historians and the Strange, Fluid World of 19th-Century Politics

Why our understanding of the era has been hindered by the party system model.
by Rachel Shelden, Erik B. Alexander via Process: A Blog for American History on May 7, 2024
Young demonstrators protesting with signs that say "Our Generation Our Choice."

Is It Useful to Analyze Politics in Terms of Generations?

Keir Milburn argues that generational analysis can explain class operation while Adolph Reed Jr. writes that it obscures historically specific social relations.
by Adolph Reed Jr., Keir Milburn via The Nation on July 14, 2023
Photo of George Bush giving a speech.

Why Did the United States Invade Iraq? The Debate at 20 Years.

The invasion is still the most important foreign policy decision by a 21st century U.S. president, so the surfeit of analysis should surprise no one.
by Joseph Stieb via Texas National Security Review on June 6, 2023
Scale, with pile of U.S. states weighing down one end, and the U.S. on the other.

How a Fringe Legal Theory Became a Threat to Democracy

Lawyers tried to use the independent-state-legislature theory to sway the outcomes of the 2000 and 2020 elections. What if it were to become the law of the land?
by Andrew Marantz via The New Yorker on June 5, 2023
An American flag stylized as a ball bearing maze.

The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

How our inability to change America’s most important document is deforming our politics and government.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on October 26, 2022
Cover to Eric Helleiner's "The Neomercantilists: A Global Intellectual History," a Japanese=style screen print depicting men discussing business by a train, with boats in the background.

Developmental Realism

Now is a critical time to acquire a better understanding of this misunderstood and oversimplified philosophy known as Neomercantilism.
by Justin H. Vassallo via Phenomenal World on June 16, 2022
illustration of Joe Biden and upside-down Capitol building

Is a Democratic Wipeout Inevitable?

Even when the president’s party passes historic legislation, voters don’t seem to care.
by Ronald Brownstein via The Atlantic on October 15, 2021

One Parallel for the Coronavirus Crisis? The Great Depression

“The idea that the federal government would be providing emergency relief and emergency work was extraordinary,” one sociologist said. “And people liked it.”
by Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on May 20, 2020
Wanto Co. grocery store with a sign that reads "I Am An American"

Discovering Judith Shklar’s Skeptical Liberalism of Fear

Judith Shklar fled Nazis and Stalinism before discovering in African-American history the dilemma of modern liberalism.
by Samantha Ashenden, Andreas Hess via Aeon on March 16, 2020
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