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Slavery, and American Racism, Were Born in Genocide

Martin Luther King Jr. recognized that Imperial expansion over stolen Indian land shaped and deepened the American Revolution’s relationship to slavery.

Pioneers of American Publicity

How John and Jessie Frémont explored the frontiers of legend-making.
Photographs of Lilian Smith and Frank Yerby.

Frank Yerby and Lillian Smith: Challenging the Myths of Whiteness

Both Southerners. Both all but forgotten. Both, in their own ways, questioned the social constructions of race and white supremacy in their writings.

If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Batuu

To work, a theme park needs to collapse the mythic pasts that it depicts with the pasts of our own lives.

The Invention of Thanksgiving

Massacres, myths, and the making of the great November holiday.

The Legend of Big Ole

How one monument came to be at the center of Minnesota’s imagined white past.
The Bullion Mine, Virginia City, Nevada, in a village at the foot of a mountain.

Gold Diggers on Camera

Creating the myth of the gold rush with the help of daguerreotypists.
African-American cowboys in Bonham, Texas, circa 1913

The Real Texas

What is Texas? Should we even think about so large and diverse a place as having an essence that can be distilled?

The Vietnam Myth That Gave Us All Those ‘Rambo’ Movies

For decades, conspiracy theorists have clung to the fiction that thousands of soldiers are being held captive in Asia.

Who Speaks for Crazy Horse?

The world’s largest monument is decades in the making and more than a little controversial.

A Brief History of Mostly Terrible Campaign Biographies

“No harm if true; but, in fact, not true.”

"Poor Whites Have Been Written out of History for a Very Political Reason"

For generations, Southern white elites have been terrified of poor whites and black workers joining hands.

How Davy Crockett Became an American Legend

Was Davy Crockett a sellout? And does it matter?
Revolutionary War reenactment.

The Second-Amendment Case for Gun Control

It's a myth that the Founders opposed the regulation of deadly weapons.

Synecdoche, Illinois

A history of how Peoria became a stand-in for the country surrounding it.

The Myth of the Welfare Queen

The right turned Linda Taylor into a bogeyman. But her real life was much more complicated.
Portrait of George Washington with lips pursed.

George Washington's Biggest Battle? With his Dentures, Made From Hippo Ivory and Maybe Slaves' Teeth

The British were a pain, to be sure, but what really caused him trouble were his teeth.

How to Fight 8chan Medievalism—and Why We Must

White supremacists are co-opting the Middle Ages. Fighting back requires us to tell better, fuller stories about the period.

The Socialist Origins of Public Defense

The right to public defense wasn’t granted by elites. It was won by socialist-led mass movements.
Pride parade passes the Stonewall Inn.
partner

Stonewall's Legacy and Kwame Anthony Appiah's Misuse of History

The New York Times should have done a better job fact-checking Appiah’s essay. Philosophy may be allegorical. History isn’t.

‘The Lehman Trilogy’ and Wall Street’s Debt to Slavery

If the play holds up a mirror to our moment, it is by registering slavery in a peripheral glance only to look away.
partner

Here Comes the D-Day Myth Again

The Allied invasion of France was an important step in the war against the Nazis. But it was by no means a turning point.

One of D-Day’s Most Famous, Heroic Assaults May Have Been Unnecessary

Pointe du Hoc’s importance as a military objective has become the subject of heated debate as the invasion’s anniversary approaches.
Daveed Diggs and Lin Manuel Miranda on stage in the musical Hamilton.

Notes Toward an Essay on Imagining Thomas Jefferson Watching a Performance of the Musical "Hamilton"

"But he'd have to acknowledge that the soul of his country is southern; the soul of his country is black."

No Man’s Land

In ignoring the messy realities of westward expansion, McCullough’s "The Pioneers" is both incomplete and dull.

The Price of Meat

America’s obsession with beef was born of conquest and exploitation.

‘Midwesterners Have Seen Themselves As Being in the Center of Everything.’

In “The Heartland,” Kristin L. Hoganson says America’s Midwest has been more connected to global events than remembered.
original

The World According to the 1580s

A newly digitized map offers a rare glimpse at the way Europeans conceived of the Americas before British colonization.

The Innovation Cult

The function of the "innovation" buzzword is to sustain the myth that business genius creates society’s wealth.
Still from a video game animation of a Black cowboy aiming a pistol at another.

‘Old Town Road’ and the History of Black Cowboys in America

A songwriter-historian weighs in on the controversy over Lil Nas X’s country-trap hit.

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