Menu
Idea

collective memory

362
View on Map
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Donald Trump and RFK Jr. shaking hands.

The Magic Thinking of Kennedy-ism

The hero worship of the family of American royalty has a dark side: a tendency toward conspiracism that fits with the MAGA movement.
by Rick Perlstein via The American Prospect on December 5, 2024
A photograph of the SS Eastland.

Checking out Historical Chicago: Cynthia Pelayo's "Forgotten Sisters"

The SS Eastland disaster and Chicago's ghosts.
by Elizabeth McNeill via Chicago Review Of Books on March 20, 2024
A young Black boy pictured mid-flip, while his peers look on. In the background are a row of houses, one of which abandoned with the windows punched out.

What We Meant When We Said 'Crackhead'

“I’ve learned, through hundreds of interviews and years of research, is that what crack really did was expose every vulnerability of society.”
by Donovan X. Ramsey via The Atlantic on July 11, 2023
Books from the 1990s.

What Literature Do We Study From the 1990s?

The turn-of-the-century literary canon, using data from college syllabi.
by Matthew Daniels via The Pudding on January 11, 2023
Ken Burns speaking into a microphone.

Shaming Americans

Ken Burns’s "The U.S. and the Holocaust" distorts the historical record in service of a political message.
by Amity Shlaes via City Journal on January 9, 2023
Mushroom cloud of nuclear bomb.

Forgetting the Apocalypse

Why our nuclear fears faded – and why that’s dangerous.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The Guardian on May 12, 2022
After his shooting, a hospitalized Wallace holds up a newspaper touting his victories in the Maryland and Michigan Democratic presidential primaries.

How a Failed Assassination Attempt Pushed George Wallace to Reconsider His Segregationist Views

Fifty years ago, a fame-seeker shot the polarizing politician five times, paralyzing him from the waist down.
by Diane Bernard via Smithsonian on May 12, 2022
Illustration of a stick figure on a ladder adding to very tall stacks of paper

Living Memory

Black archivists, activists, and artists are fighting for justice and ethical remembrance — and reimagining the archive itself.
by Megan Pillow via Guernica on June 23, 2021
A slave in chains behind an American flag

Germany Faced its Horrible Past. Can We Do the Same?

For too long, we've ignored our real history. We must face where truth can take us.
by Michele Norris via Washington Post on June 3, 2021

The School Shooting That Austin Forgot

In 1978, an eighth grader from a prominent Austin family killed his teacher. His classmates are still haunted by what happened that terrible day and after.
by Robert Draper via Texas Monthly on March 18, 2020
Dr. Cliff Kuhn leading the 1906 Race Riot Walking Tour. Photo credit: Julia Brock

Atlanta's 1906 Race Riot and the Coalition to Remember

Commemorating the event that hardened the lines of segregation in the city.
by Jennifer Dickey via National Council on Public History on February 6, 2020

The Remembered Past

On the beginnings of our stories—and the history of who owns them.
by Lewis H. Lapham via Lapham’s Quarterly on December 14, 2019

1968’s Chaos: The Assassinations, Riots and Protests that Defined Our World

On the 50th anniversary of that extraordinary year, historians consider 1968’s meaning and global context.
by Michael S. Rosenwald via Washington Post on January 1, 2018
A Continental soldier in the Revolutionary War holding a tattered American flag and standing on chains.

We Could Have Been Canada

Was the American Revolution such a good idea?
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on May 8, 2017
Bob Dylan.

Legacy of a Lonesome Death

Had Bob Dylan not written a song about it, the 1963 killing of a black servant by a white socialite’s cane might have been long forgotten.
by Ian Frazier via Mother Jones on May 8, 2010
Eagle on the front cover of Lynd's "Origins of American Radicalism" book
partner

The Return of Staughton Lynd

A look back at the historian's work suggests that contemporary radicals may be all too invested in the myth of American consensus.
by David Waldstreicher via HNN on February 15, 2010
Illustration of Ives seen as an American counterpart to Mahler.

Charles Ives, Connoisseur of Chaos

Celebrating the composer’s 150th birthday, at a festival in Bloomington, Indiana.
by Alex Ross via The New Yorker on November 4, 2024
A drawing of a skeletal hand erupting from the ground and separating a house with a Harris/Walz sign and a house with a Trump/Vance sign. Face masks float in the wind.

There’s a Very Specific Issue Haunting This Election. No One Is Talking About It.

You can bury it. But you can’t escape it.
by Grady Hendrix via Slate on October 31, 2024
Ronald Reagan preparing for a broadcast on Voice of America.

Whose Ronald Reagan?

Fighting over the legacy of a conservative hero in the era of Trump.
by Susan B. Glasser via Foreign Affairs on October 22, 2024
Reflections in a store window of people watching the 9/11 attack on television.

The World That September 11 Made

Richard Beck’s “Homeland” traces the far-reaching aftereffects of the attacks and tries to recover the events of the day, as they happened.
by Ed Burmila via The New Republic on September 9, 2024
A screenshot from "Red Dead Redemption 2" of cowboy protagonist Arthur Morgan riding a horse in a western landscape.

What Red Dead Redemption II Reveals About Our Myths of the American West

On the making of a centuries-old obsession at the heart of American national identity.
by Tore C. Olsson via Literary Hub on August 28, 2024
The 54th Massachusetts regiment storming Fort Wagner.

Did Robert Gould Shaw Have to Volunteer the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts to Prove Their Bravery?

Questions linger about the assault on Fort Wagner, which took place on this day in 1863.
by Kevin M. Levin via Civil War Memory on July 18, 2024
A soldier walking an old woman through a destroyed city.

D-Day’s Forgotten Victims Speak Out

Eighty years after D-Day, few know one of its darkest stories: the thousands of civilians killed by a carpet-bombing campaign of little military purpose.
by Ed Vulliamy via New York Review of Books on June 10, 2024
1957 U.S. Supreme Court Justices
partner

Super Chief

Reconsidering Earl Warren's place in U.S. history.
by Michael Bobelian via HNN on May 14, 2024
A photograph of four children standing, one is slouching.

Are You Sitting Up Straight? America’s Obsession with Improving Posture

In Beth Linker’s new book, she applies a disability studies lens to the history of posture.
by Laura Ansley via Perspectives on History on May 9, 2024
Students in a Kent State University classroom.

Decades After Kent State Shooting, the Tragic Legacy Shapes its Activism

The university where 13 student protesters were killed or injured during the Vietnam War era worries that other schools have learned nothing from its history.
by Jonathan Edwards via Washington Post on May 4, 2024
Police beat protesters at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

The Plot to Wreck the Democratic Convention

May not amount to much, actually. Chicago 2024 is not Chicago 1968.
by David Frum via The Atlantic on April 29, 2024
Lincoln Center on the opening night of the Met Opera, 1966.

Curtains for Lincoln Center

On the falsification of Lincoln Center’s history.
by James Panero via The New Criterion on April 17, 2024
A celebration of Linda Martell on the stage of the Country Music Awards.

Who is Linda Martell, the Black Country Musician Beyoncé Spotlights?

The first Black woman to play the Grand Ole Opry and hit Billboard’s country music charts.
by Jonathan Edwards via Washington Post on March 30, 2024
Vice President Joe Biden visits Israel on January 13, 2014.

The Shoah After Gaza

Jewish suffering at the hands of Nazis are the foundation on which most descriptions of extreme ideology and atrocity have been built.
by Pankaj Mishra via London Review of Books on March 21, 2024
View More
30 of
362

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History