Cold War — Bunk History

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The Presidential Fitness Test Won’t Make America ‘Tough’ Again

The Trump administration Is borrowing from a failed cold-war era playbook.

by Shelly McKenzie via Zócalo Public Square on October 23, 2025

Joseph McCarthy.

The Red Scare Is American Past and Present

If we want to understand how we arrived in this authoritarian moment in 2025, we need to understand one of the central pathways that brought us here.

by Benjamin Balthaser via Jacobin on October 19, 2025

Cover of "The Age of Hitler"

Should We Move on From Hitler?

What happens when Hitler’s shadow fades—and what moral vision replaces it?

by Jeroen Bouterse via 3 Quarks Daily on October 9, 2025

Arthur Oncken Lovejoy receives an honorary diploma from George Boas during 1951 commencement ceremony.

The Real History of Tenure

Tenure is more than just academic freedom; it is also about labor protection, and it has a long history.

by Deepa Das Acevedo via Made By History on October 1, 2025

Rows of men seated at computer terminals at Kennedy Space Center, 1967.

America’s Privacy Policy

Recent news coverage has called the Privacy Act of 1974 “Watergate-inspired,” but such framing misses the big picture.

by Jillian Foley via HNN on September 30, 2025

President Woodrow Wilson delivers an address in, 1915.

Democratization and Congressional Decline

To understand Congress’s abdication, look at the history of presidential selection.

by James Devereaux via Law & Liberty on September 29, 2025

Black and white image of a MAGA rally.

Repeal the 20th Century: Pre-MAGA

To understand the intellectual coordinates of Trumpism we must look in unconventional places.

by William Davies via London Review of Books on September 17, 2025

Books lined up.

How Translations Sell: Three U.S. Eras of International Bestsellers

A translation renaissance in US publishing just ended. And you probably missed it.

by Jed Kudrick, Sean DiLeonardi ‪ via Public Books on September 16, 2025

Latin America, the United States, and the Creation of Social-Democratic Modernity

A Q&A with the author of "America, América: “A New History of the New World.”

by Greg Grandin, Alexander Aviña via Public Books on September 9, 2025

Charlie Chaplin stands fearfully in a hall of mirrors.

No Way Out

In broadcasting, the Red Scare turned into a stupid hall of mirrors.

by Julia Barton via Continuous Wave on September 4, 2025

Presidents and various military personnel / armory photoshopped over each other

The Long Descent to Unilateralism

The twentieth century saw America discard representative government when it comes to war.

by Sarah Burns via Law & Liberty on September 1, 2025

Frank Meyer

Movement to Movement

Frank Meyer’s journey took him from communist agitator to conservative kingmaker.

by Jacob Heilbrunn via The American Conservative on August 25, 2025

John McCain stands in a crowd shaking hands in a Ukrainian city.

How Decades of Folly Led to War in Ukraine

For decades, US hostility towards Russia and continued NATO encroachment ever further into Eastern Europe have laid the groundwork for the current crisis.

by Michael A. Reynolds via Compact on August 15, 2025

Poster of the first issue stamp celebrating the Mendez v. Westminster School District case.

Mendez v. Westminster and Mexican American Desegregation

International relations and foreign influence helped end legal segregation of Mexican American students in California after World War II.

by Matthew Wills, Jennifer McCormick via JSTOR Daily on August 10, 2025

Mushroom clouds of the atomic bombings in Japan.

Activists and Stewards In the Shadow of Hiroshima

After Hiroshima, scientists became key political voices, some as stewards, others as activists, shaping nuclear policy and moral responsibility.

by Ashutosh Jogalekar via 3 Quarks Daily on August 6, 2025

A crowd of Iranian protesters burns photos.

The Islamic Republic Was Never Inevitable

With Iran’s theocracy under strain, a new history shows that its rise was mainly a stroke of bad luck.

by Arash Azizi via The Atlantic on August 5, 2025

Donald Trump, flanked by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others, shows executive order restarting the Presidential Fitness Test

What’s Behind Trump’s New (Old) Physical-Fitness Test?

He misrepresented the history of the gym-class test. I know because I served on the council that helped modernize it.

by Mark Hertling via The Bulwark on August 4, 2025

A newspaper reports that only 1 in 3 Americans support Kennedy's goal to land on the moon, per Gallup.

Most of America Opposed the Moon Landing

Before that "giant leap for mankind" Americans weren't so enthusiastic.

by Louis Anslow via Pessimists Archive on July 20, 2025

A magnifying glass rests atop Arthur Schlessinger's THe Cycle of American History.

What If the Political Pendulum Doesn’t Swing Back?

"The Cycles of American History" foresaw American voter dealignment, and an age of voters prioritizing personality over party—but it didn’t anticipate Trump.

by Michael Brenes via The New Republic on July 11, 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

Workers adjust a metal sheet on a Titan missile assembly line.

The Permanent War Economy Doesn’t Benefit Workers

Advocates of “military Keynesianism” present it as a boon for the working class. In reality, it diverts resources away from social provision.

by Hanna Goldberg via Jacobin on June 23, 2025

Martin Luther King Jr stands behind a podium.

5 Lessons From the Real Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This Juneteenth we need to discard the caricatures of King that we so often see and learn from what he actually did and believed.

by Jeanne Theoharis via The Nation on June 19, 2025

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration headquarters.

Trump May be Repeating Reagan's Deep Sea Mining Mistake

Undermining international oceans governance could damage American interests.

by Sonya Schoenberger via Made By History on June 17, 2025

An illustration of blurry Korean people in the ruins of a city after a nuclear bombing.

The Atomic Bombs’ Forgotten Korean Victims

Survivors of the nuclear blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still fighting for recognition.

by E. Tammy Kim via The New Yorker on June 16, 2025

Karl Marx's face in the American flag

The Marxists Are Coming

Calls to defund the Marxist left and similar mobilizations against rumors of a new red dawn are nothing new.

by Mathias Fuelling via The Baffler on June 10, 2025

George Kennan; American soldiers and helicopters in Vietnam.

Conservative Realism and Vietnam

We were warned.

by Francis P. Sempa via Modern Age on May 12, 2025

Lyndon Johnson and Richard Helms, framed by a camera shutter.

Is Spying Un-American?

Espionage has always been with us, but its rapid growth over the past century may have undermined trust in government.

by James Santel via The Atlantic on May 8, 2025

Cardinals walking through the Vatican.

Why Papal Conclaves Have Drawn the Attention of Spies

Intelligence agencies have long gathered information to help their governments get a sense of who the next pope might be.

by Yvonnick Denoël via Made By History on May 7, 2025

Lin Taiyi takes dictation from her father, Dr. Lin Yutang, on a typewriter he invented.

Lost and Found: The Unexpected Journey of the MingKwai Typewriter

Its ingenious design inspired generations of language-processing technology, but only one prototype was made and had long been assumed lost.

by Yangyang Chen via Made In China Journal on May 2, 2025

Helicopter, soldiers, and civilians at the fall of Saigon.

How We Oversimplified the History of the Vietnam War

Popular memory of the war in both the U.S. and Vietnam tends to cast the fall of Saigon as inevitable.

by Andrew Bellisari via Made By History on April 30, 2025

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