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Margaret Mead in front of a bookshelf, with a book in hand

How Cultural Anthropologists Redefined Humanity

A brave band of scholars set out to save us from racism and sexism. What happened?
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on August 29, 2019
Malcolm Cowley

The Man Who Helped Make the American Literary Canon

In the early twentieth century, America's literature seemed provincial until Malcolm Cowley championed writers like Kerouac and Faulkner as distinctly American.
by Kevin Lozano via The New Yorker on November 19, 2025
Locker room in which men are hiding behind towels and curtains.

The End of Naked Locker Rooms

What we lose when casual nudity disappears.
by Jacob Beckert via The Atlantic on November 13, 2025
Illustration of draping a Pizza Hut tarp over the Hammer and Sickle.

Pizzastroika

In 1990, one of the great forgotten acts of American subterfuge unfolded. It involved Pizza Hut.
by Josh Levin, Kelly Jones via Slate on November 13, 2025
Drawing of two men with axes.
partner

History According to Robert Bork

How the conservative scholar’s 1996 bestseller anticipated blaming everything on “woke.”
by Toby Jaffe via HNN on November 4, 2025
Portraits of Henry James and John Singer Sargent.

What Is an American Hero, Anyway?

Lists of great artists say more about the list-maker than the artist.
by Jessa Crispin via The American Scholar on October 24, 2025
Apples on a branch of an apple tree.

To Understand America, Look to the Everyday Apple

The country is losing neighbourhood orchards—and a connection to its origins.
by Priyanka Kumar via The Walrus on September 27, 2025
Janis Joplin, Kris Kristofferson, Barbara McKee.

Me and Bobbie McKee

The story of the woman who inspired Janis Joplin’s signature song, then slipped away.
by Elon Green via Slate on September 20, 2025

The Dawn of the Post-Literate Society

And the end of civilisation.
by James Marriott via Cultural Capital on September 19, 2025
A book on top of a column.

American Higher Ed Never Figured Out Its Purpose

The centuries-long debate over who and what college is for has yet to be resolved.
by Jake Lundberg via The Atlantic on September 18, 2025
Part of the Parthenon Frieze, Elgin Marbles, British Museum.

The Origins of the West

Georgios Varouxakis reexamines when and why people began to conceptualize "the West."
by Max Skjönsberg via Law & Liberty on August 25, 2025
Image of Oswald Spengler.

The Strange Fate of Oswald Spengler

Spengler shared the anti-American prejudice of many of his German contemporaries, and it is safe to assume that he would have disparaged us as rootless.
by Kyle Baasch via Compact on August 22, 2025
Still from the "Last Temptation of Christ" depicting Jesus on the cross.

Among the Blasphemers

The ’80s I thought I remembered now feel very different to me.
by Gerald Howard via n+1 on July 24, 2025
Mike Gold fading into a field of stars of David.

On the Decades-Long Erasure of Jewish Working-Class Anti-Zionism

Mike Gold, Alexander Bittelman, and the paradoxes of left-wing Zionism.
by Benjamin Balthaser via Literary Hub on July 23, 2025
A group of men in 19th-century clothing groom their beards.

The First Time America Went Beard Crazy

A sweeping new history explores facial hair as a proving ground for notions about gender, race, and rebellion.
by Margaret Talbot via The New Yorker on July 21, 2025
Photo collage of 20th century women's fashion.

The 20th Century Designer Who Put Common Sense Into Women’s Fashion

A new book recognizes Claire McCardell as a pioneer of American womenswear as we know it.
by Camille Freestone via Harper's Bazaar on July 7, 2025
Six stools with increasingly pixilated versions of "The Thinker."

Perplexity

Why is the essential promise of technology and the alleviation of drudgery not enough?
by Trevor Quirk via The Hedgehog Review on July 7, 2025
Fabric with stars on one side and George Washington on the other.

The ‘Dirty and Nasty People’ Who Became Americans

How 13 colonies came together.
by Lindsay M. Chervinsky via The Atlantic on July 4, 2025
Book cover for The Invention of Design by Maggie Gram features a phone cord snaking around text.
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Irrelevant at Best, or Else Complicit

The state of design in 1970.
by Maggie Gram via HNN on June 3, 2025
Film still from "Three Seasons" of a flower seller in Vietnam.

Tony Bui on the Vietnam War’s Cinematic Legacy

Films from Vietnam and Hollywood testify to the range of stories told about the war on-screen and the different memories they embody.
by Will Noah, Tony Bui via Current [The Criterion Collection] on April 29, 2025
Diagram of a movement experiment studying abnormalities in walking

The Making of the American Culture of Work

Building the assumption of work’s meaningfulness happened across many different institutions and types of media.
by Max L. Chapnick via Commonplace on April 22, 2025
City College of New York in a still from Joseph Dorman’s Arguing the World, 1997.

The 176-Year Argument

How the City College of New York went from an experiment in public education to an intellectual hot spot for working class and immigrant students.
by Vivian Gornick via New York Review of Books on April 3, 2025
O-o-be' grins at the camera dressed in traditional clothing.

A Rare Smile Captured in a 19th Century Photograph

O-o-be' stood out in an era when smiles on camera weren't common.
by Ted Mills via Open Culture on March 30, 2025
Henry James.

Henry James’s American Journey

Why his turn-of-the-century travelogue still resonates.
by Anthony Domestico via The Chronicle of Higher Education on March 28, 2025
Floyd’s rowboat used for gathering passengers offshore at Jaffa. Barque et Bateliers de Jaffa.

An American Dragoman in Palestine—and in Print

Floyd’s unusual visibility gives rare insight into how the largely-invisible dragomen shaped travelers’ understandings of the Bible and the Holy Land.
by Walker Robins via Commonplace on March 5, 2025
James Baldwin at work on his novel “Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone," and smoking.

Refinding James Baldwin

A fascinating new exhibit focuses on Baldwin’s years in Turkey, the country that, in his words, saved his life.
by Doreen St. Félix via The New Yorker on December 28, 2024
Reenactors working with performance artist Dread Scott in 2019 retrace the route of an 1811 rebellion of enslaved people in Louisiana.

My Gun Culture Is Not Your Gun Culture

In Black Southern life, guns have been a sign of readiness against constant threats.
by Chantal James via The New Republic on December 28, 2024
Ballet dancers (all ages and genders)posing in christmas costumes.

How Christmas Became an All-American Holiday

What kind of Christmas did we used to know? To hear some critics and historians tell it, the holiday used to be a lot more religious than it is now.
by Samuel Goldman via Compact on December 24, 2024

"It's the Economy, Stupid" is Never Just About the Economy

Can the Clinton campaign slogan chart a path forward for Democrats? Its history tells another story.
by Jacob Rosenberg via Mother Jones on December 12, 2024
1940s era tattoo shop

How Do You Preserve Tattoo History When Skin And Memory Fail?

Ed Hardy's historic tattoo parlor is closing. A lot more than that stands to be lost.
by Casey Taylor via Defector on December 6, 2024
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