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Jimmy Carter at a podium against the backdrop of an American flag.

Is Jimmy Carter Where Environmentalism Went Wrong?

Carter’s austerity was part of a bigger project. It didn’t really have much to do with environmentalism.
Venable Mound, Morehouse Parish, Louisiana, built ca. 700–1200 CE.

Monuments Upon the Tumultuous Earth

For thousands of years, Indigenous societies were building hundred-foot pyramids along the Mississippi River.
A police officer stands beside a crashed automobile, 1905. (Photo by Robert Alexander / Getty Images)

The Reckless History of the Automobile

In "The Car," Bryan Appleyard sets out to celebrate the freedom these vehicles granted. But what if they were a dangerous technology from the start?
Rats in a garden.

New York’s Rats Have Already Won

I thought having a rat czar would be an easy win for the city. I was wrong.
Exhibit

Climate Crisis

The levels of carbon currently in the Earth's atmosphere are unprecedented in the historical and geological records. Still, the climate crisis does have a history.

Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires

Escape Therapy

Hyperindividualism has infiltrated our economic, social, and political landscape.
DDT being sprayed at Jones Beach in New York in 1945.

The Problem With Silent Spring Environmentalism

A new history of the environmental movement places too much emphasis on famous figures like Rachel Carson and shies away from confronting failures.
Statue of Liberty's torch.

Why the Philosophers Libertarians Love Always Come Out Worse for Wear

Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek have been through the wringer.
People watching uranium mill waste blow in the wind.

The Cold War Legacy Lurking in U.S. Groundwater

A catalog of cleanup efforts at the 50-plus sites where uranium was processed for nuclear weapons, where polluted water and sickness were often left behind.
People swimming along the Hawaiian coast.

My Whole Life Is Empty Without You

A necessarily abridged perspective of place in Hawai‘i.
The Ashokan Reservoir in upstate New York at sunset.

The Towns at the Bottom of New York City’s Reservoirs

A new book uncovers the story of New York’s pursuit of water, and the homes and communities destroyed in the process.
Illustration of Economists in Different Positions in the Government

May God Save Us From Economists

Over the last half-century, economics has infiltrated parts of the federal government where it has no business intruding.
The first informal meeting of the League of Nations in Geneva, 1920.

Do Sanctions Work?

A new history examines their use in the past and considers their effectiveness for the future.
Trumpet vine in Bayou Bienvenue. An orange-red flower held in someone's hand.

Living Freedom Through the Maroon Landscape

Swampland communities established by self-liberated slaves in Louisiana offer a model to cope with climate disruption.
Mount Harkness Fire Lookout in California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Historic Fire Lookout Towers Are Burning Down in Today’s Megafires

One of the country’s oldest fire lookouts was destroyed last year in the largest wildfire in California’s history. What else is being lost?
Newspaper lithograph of people fleeing the yellow fever epidemic on a boat in Mississippi.

The Sick Society

The story of a regional ruling class that struck a devil’s bargain with disease, going beyond negligence to cultivate semi-annual yellow fever epidemics.
Earthen mounds at Louisiana State University.

Oldest Human-made Structure in the Americas Is Older Than the Egyptian Pyramids

The grass-covered mounds represent 11,000 years of human history.
Picture of President Joe Biden, left, and President Jimmy Carter, right.

What Historians Think of Joe Biden-Jimmy Carter Comparisons

Historical experts and former Carter advisers fact-check the critics who have compared Joe Biden to Jimmy Carter.
Dry cracked, barren land at dawn, the former bed of the Salton Sea, 2019.

The Toxic History of the Salton Sea

A new book catalogs the alarming events that created one of the West’s most polluted bodies of water.

Black Marines Were 'Dogged' On This Base In The 1940s. Now They're Honored There

In the 1940s about 20,000 men trained on racially segregated Montford Point in North Carolina.
American politicians with supporters and German citizens in the background

1989-2001: America’s Long Lost Weekend

From the fall of the Berlin Wall to 9/11, we had relative peace and prosperity. We squandered it completely.
Painting of swamp with a bird on a branch

Swamps Can Protect Against Climate Change, If We Only Let Them

Wetlands absorb carbon dioxide and buffer the excesses of drought and flood, yet we’ve drained much of this land. Can we learn to love our swamps?
Hitchhikers sitting on a road, thumbs extended.

That Ol’ Thumb: Hitchhiking

A review of "Driving With Strangers: What Hitchhiking Tells Us About Humanity."
Flooding in Livingston, Montana, with Yellowstone National Park mountains in the background.

What Extreme Flooding in Yellowstone Means for the National Park's Gateway Towns

These communities rely almost entirely on tourism for their existence—yet too much tourism, not to mention climate change, can destroy them.
Botanical illustration of Black Eyed Pea plant
partner

Plant of the Month: Black-eyed Pea

Human relationships to this global crop have been shaped by both violence and resilience.
Rescue workers look through the roof of a submerged Rapid City house for flood victims on June 12, 1972.
partner

A Largely Forgotten Flood Ignited The Environmental Justice Movement

The Rapid City flood helped define pervasive environmental injustice and catalyze action.
An image of a sardine can with a large group of people shoved inside.

The People Who Hate People

Of all the objections NIMBYs raise to new housing and infrastructure, perhaps the most risible is that their community is already too crowded.
Sketched portrait of Kim Stanley Robinson in front of a line drawing of the Sierra Navada landscape

Seeing Mars on Earth

Kim Stanley Robinson on how the High Sierra has influenced his science fiction.
Oil rigs just south of town extract crude for Chevron at sunrise in Taft, California, on July 22, 2008.

How Private Oil Companies Took Over U.S. Energy Security

And why it’s time to take it back.
Photo from above showing people walking and biking on the painted letters in Black Lives Matter Plaza.

When Did the Ruling Class Get Woke?

A conversation with Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò on his new book, which investigates the co-option of identity politics and the importance of coalitional organizing. 
Students paddling rafts on Milwaukee River

Remember When Earth Day Used to Be Cool?

Today, the holiday is just a chance for ExxonMobil to release nonsensical ad campaigns. But once upon a time, it was a radical success story.

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