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View of New Amsterdam from the 1620s.

The Dutch Roots of American Liberty

New York would never be the Puritans' austere city on a hill, yet it became America’s vibrant heart of capitalism.
by John O. McGinnis via Law & Liberty on April 10, 2025
Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, Battle of San Juan, Cuba, 1898.

How It Became Wrong for Nations to Conquer Others

It’s only a century since US diplomats first persuaded the world that it’s wrong for countries to annex their neighbours.
by Kerry Goettlich via Aeon on March 13, 2025
A view of an Inuit town in Greenland surrounded by snowy hills.

Greenland: Polar Politics

Though it may seem like a new topic of concern, the glaciated landscape of Greenland has floated in and out of American politics for decades.
by Rob Crossan via JSTOR Daily on February 10, 2025
Political cartoon of a column with the United States, Chile, and China; United Kingdom falling.

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers Redux

The author of the 20th century’s most influential history book anticipates the coming world order.
by Paul Kennedy via New Statesman on September 20, 2023
Austin West, a Choctaw student, visits Kindred Spirits, a monument to the Choctaw in County Cork.

The Unlikely, Enduring Friendship Between Ireland and the Choctaw Nation

One act of generosity during the Great Famine forged a bond that transcends generations.
by Richard Grant via Smithsonian on September 7, 2023
IMPERATOR Steam ship.

The Students Who Went to Sea

"The Floating University: Experience, Empire, and the Politics of Knowledge"
by William H. Whyte via Literary Review on July 7, 2023
President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands at the Group of 20 summit.
partner

Diplomacy Defused Cold War Crises. It Can Help Again Today.

The type of quiet, personal, informed diplomacy advocated by George Kennan can reduce tensions with China and Russia.
by Frank Costigliola via Made By History on February 10, 2023
Adolf Hitler with high-ranking Nazi officers during Operation Barbarossa, the failed offensive against the Soviet Union, 7 August 1941.

Geopolitics is a Loser’s Buzzword with a Contagious Idea

The concept of geopolitics comes from German and Russian attempts to explain defeat and reverse loss of influence.
by Harold James via Aeon on December 1, 2022
A tank on a city street.

U.S. Deliberation During Hungary’s 1956 Uprising Offers Lessons on Restraint

As the war in Ukraine worsens, there’s little debate about Western policy choices. This is a mistake.
by Branko Marcetic via Current Affairs on June 1, 2022

What History Can Tell Us About the Fallout From Restricting Immigration

U.S. immigration policies are inextricably linked to American foreign relations.
by David C. Atkinson via TIME on February 3, 2017
Drawing of Native Americans on a boat

Masters of Empire: Great Lakes Indians and the Making of America

Michael A. McDonnell’s book is a wonderfully researched microhistory of the Michilimackinac area from the mid-17th to the early 19th century.
by Adam Nadeau via Borealia: Early Canadian History on June 27, 2016
The “Visscher Map of the New World” including North and South America, 1658.

The Impossibly Intertwined History of the Americas

A conversation with Greg Grandin about his groundbreaking new book "America, América: A New History of the New World."
by Greg Grandin, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via The Nation on April 21, 2025
Arthur Zimmerman and his intercepted telegram.

Worse Than Signalgate

Accidentally sharing attack plans in a group chat is bad. Causing a rising superpower to declare war on you because of a Western Union telegram is worse.
by Timothy W. Ryback via The Atlantic on April 11, 2025
A torn border fence is bent into the shape of the Americas.

What America Can Learn From the Americas

Greg Grandin’s sweeping history of the new world shows how immutably intertwined the United States is with Latin America.
by Patrick Iber via The New Republic on April 7, 2025
Floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Regime Change in the West?

Where amid this turmoil does neoliberalism stand? In emergency conditions it has been forced to take measures.
by Perry Anderson via London Review of Books on March 25, 2025
Drawing of the fight between two congressional representatives titled "Congressional pugilists," 1798.

Alien Enemies, Alien Friends, and the Concept of “Allegiance”

With controversy raging over the Alien Enemies Act, how should we understand the concept it invoked?
by Robert Natelson via Law & Liberty on March 24, 2025
Gail "Hal" Halvorsen interacts with children in West Berlin
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How a Cold War Airlift Saved Berlin With Food, Medicine and Chocolate

A Soviet blockade around Berlin cut the city off from the West. But in 1948 U.S. and British pilots began to fly food, fuel and medicine to the Allied sectors.
via Retro Report on March 20, 2025
A drawing of a ship firing cannons at another vessel.

On the Colonial Power Struggle That Would Give Birth to the City of New York

For historian Russell Shorto, it was all about water.
by Russell Shorto via Literary Hub on March 18, 2025
Shield with the words "For European Recovery Supplied by the United States of America."

Soft Power

What it means, why it matters, and where it started.
by Lindsay M. Chervinsky via Imperfect Union on March 15, 2025
Volunteers at a camp for internally displaced people in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, carry wheat flour donated by USAID in 2021.

USAID’s History Shows Decades of Good Work on Behalf of America’s Global Interests

USAID started in the 1960s as a way to offset the spread of communism. Since then, it has had various other soft-power benefits for the US.
by Christian Ruth via The Conversation on March 5, 2025
Laborers in El Salvador receive food allotments as part of a program sponsored by U.S.A.I.D., in 1983.

Growing Up U.S.A.I.D.

As a child in postings around the world, the author witnessed the agency’s complex relationship with American empire—and with autocrats everywhere.
by Jon Lee Anderson via The New Yorker on February 25, 2025
Vladimir Putin's eyes revealed from behind torn paper.

How America Wasted Its Most Powerful Economic Weapon

If world leaders had been clearer about the sanctions Putin would face, they might have deterred his invasion of Ukraine.
by Edward Fishman via The Atlantic on February 24, 2025
French Gen. Jean de Rochambeau and American Gen. George Washington giving the last orders in October 1781 for the battle at Yorktown.

How Allies Have Helped the US Gain Independence, Defend Freedom and Keep the Peace

Why should a country want or need allies? President Donald Trump and his followers seem to disdain the idea. So did George Washington.
by Donald Heflin via The Conversation on February 20, 2025
President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

The First Draft of the Ukraine War’s History

Washington’s policy-makers showed themselves more wicked and feckless than their Vietnam- and Iraq-era predecessors.
by Scott McConnell via The American Conservative on February 19, 2025
Richard Nixon and Zhou Enlai
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How Nixon’s 1972 China Visit Set the Stage for Today’s Tensions Over Taiwan

The legacy of Nixon's strategic ambiguity of acknowledging China's claim to Taiwan without fully committing.
via Retro Report on February 18, 2025
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House.

Trump’s Gaza Plan May Mark the End of the Postwar Order

Although the West has long tolerated forced expulsions when convenient, its postwar framework at least nominally rejected them. Now the US is endorsing it.
by Dirk Moses via Jacobin on February 16, 2025
A worker removes the U.S. Agency for International Development sign from its headquarters on February 7.

Seeds of Mistrust

Musk and Trump are capitalizing on decades of confusion and broken promises to lay waste to a crucial agency.
by Jonathan M. Katz via The Racket on February 12, 2025
Baseball caps that read "Canada Is Not For Sale."
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Trump Shares the Founders' Delusions on Canada

Attempts to add Canada to the U.S. have gone poorly since the 1770s. Trump's rhetoric threatens a repeat.
by Lawrence B. A. Hatter via Made By History on February 4, 2025
Poofs of smoke in the sky.

An “Iron Dome for America”: A History Repeating Itself

How America’s search for total security keeps making the world more dangerous.
by Athena Drakou via The Climate Historian on February 3, 2025
Jimmy Carter and General Omar Torrijos shake hands after signing the Panama Canal Treaty in 1977

The Panama Canal Treaty Declassified

Kissinger warned: “This is no issue to face the world on. It looks like pure colonialism.”
by Peter Kornbluh via National Security Archive on February 3, 2025
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