Filter by:

Filter by published date

partner

The North Tried Compromise. The South Chose War.

The South's insistence upon protecting and spreading slavery caused the Civil War.

John Kelly Calls Robert E. Lee An ‘Honorable Man’ and Says ‘Lack of Compromise’ Caused The Civil War

The White House chief of staff set off a firestorm Monday after his comments on the Confederate general.
Washington D.C. in 1860.

Draining the Swamp

Washington may be the only city on Earth that lobbied itself into existence.

How the Demise of Her Health-Care Plan Led to the Politician Clinton Is Today

As first lady, Clinton rejected the ways of Washington and paid a price.
Drawing of the Constitutional Convention, by John W. Winkler.
partner

Strange Political Bedfellows

The origins of the Electoral College are entwined with slavery, but not in the way that recent accounts have suggested.
Eugene V. Debs giving a speech on an American flag themed stage.

Did ‘Churchianity’ Sink American Socialism?

A new book blames institutional Protestantism for undermining a vibrant strain of Christian radicalism that swirled through the Gilded Age.
Collage of Stop Cop City protestors and Coca Cola products.

No Atlanta Way

Stop Cop City meets the establishment.
Two young people working construction through AmeriCorps.

Creating AmeriCorps

The bipartisan push to create AmeriCorps, and the community service organization's impact.
Woodrow Wilson working at his desk on May 1, 1917.

Don’t Be So Quick to Laud Woodrow Wilson

An effort is underway to restore President Wilson’s reputation as a great reformer. His best reforms were won by a mass movement, often pushing against Wilson.
Woodrow Wilson.

The Poltergeist of Woodrow Wilson

We still live with the consequences of the 28th president’s fuzzy thinking.
Obama, Reagan, Trump, George W Bush, and Biden

Things Fall Apart: How the Middle Ground on Immigration Collapsed

Politicians from both sides used to agree on immigration policy. What happened?
DC Map

Fifty Years Of Home Rule In Washington, DC

After Congress robbed Washingtonians of local and federal representation, decades of activism -- slowed by racist opposition -- finally succeeded in 1973.
Bayard Rustin speaks from the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington.

Bayard Rustin Showed the Promise and Pitfalls of Coalition Politics

Bayard Rustin tried to forge a mass coalition to deliver progressive change. His failure to do so in the 1960s tells us much about building one today.
Bayard Rustin speaking at an event.

Eclipsed in His Era, Bayard Rustin Gets to Shine in Ours

The civil-rights mastermind was sidelined by his own movement. Now he’s back in the spotlight. What can we learn from his strategies of resistance?
Closed fist with faces of Judith Shklar, Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, and Lionel Trilling

Cold War Liberalism Is Still With Us. Is That a Good Thing?

A scholarly roundtable on Samuel Moyn's new book.
Supreme Court justice swearing in FDR at inauguration.

When FDR Took On the Supreme Court

The standard narrative of Roosevelt's court-packing efforts casts them as a failure. But what if they were a success?
Signs at bus stops in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, telling residents about the availability of the SNAP program.
partner

SNAP Work Requirements Are a Triumph of Politics Over Evidence

Decades of evidence reveals that work requirements for food assistance leave people hungry and hurt the economy. But supporting them remains good politics.
Senators Cory Booker and Chuck Grassley conversing.

How Washington Bargained Away Rural America

Every five years, the farm bill brings together Democrats and Republicans. The result is the continued corporatization of agriculture.
Abraham Lincoln.

The Two Constitutions

James Oakes’s deeply researched book argues that two very different readings of the 1787 charter put the United States on a course of all but inevitable conflict.
D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, left, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) greet the audience at a town hall meeting at Eastern High School in D.C. in 1995.

House GOP and D.C.: A Historically Strained Marriage Grows More Tenuous

Republicans have long made a sport of deriding Washington, portraying it as a dysfunctional, crime-infested “swamp."
Political cartoon of Franklin Roosevelt pulling the Democratic Party donkey with Uncle Sam, Congress, and Republicans behind them.

Pitching the Big Tent

The secret, often missing ingredient to building a majoritarian progressive coalition.
Collage of famous historical sites around the world.

The Future of Historic Preservation: History Matters … But Which History?

The complicated and visceral issue of how we preserve our history offers an opportunity for meaningful discourse.
Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson at his desk in November 1957.

When Lyndon B. Johnson Chose the Middle Ground on Civil Rights—and Disappointed Everyone

Always a dealmaker, then-senator LBJ negotiated with segregationists to pass a bill that cautiously advanced racial equality.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) points to a newly installed sign above his office after he was elected in 15 rounds of votes.
partner

What Lessons Can the House Draw From 1923’s Speaker Battle?

The House speaker fight was eerily reminiscent of 1923 — but the differences between the two will drive what comes next.
Kevin McCarthy
partner

What 1856 Teaches Us About the Ramifications of the House Speaker Fight

The battle is worth winning for Kevin McCarthy — and could reshape the Republican Party.
Wide view of past members in the House of Representatives.

What History Tells Us About Kevin McCarthy’s Chances

One hundred years ago, a strong leader brought House rebels to the table to elect a speaker. Can McCarthy do the same?
Kevin McCarthy looking anxious.

Back to the Future? Battling Over the Speakership on the House Floor

The history of speakership contests underscores the corner Kevin McCarthy is painted into and the corner any Republican House leader is likely to face.
Shadowy photograph of two people standing in front of statue of Lincoln in Lincoln Memorial

In Jon Meacham’s Biography, Lincoln Is a Guiding Light For Our Times

The famous historian makes the claim that the demigods of American historical mythology can help us carve paths through our forbidding 21st-century wilderness.
Painting of the drafters if the U.S. Constitution

A Colorblind Compromise?

“Colorblindness,” an ideology that denies race as an organizing principle of the nation’s structural order, reaches back to the drafting of the US Constitution.
Members of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union break open barrels of liquor seized during Prohibition, 1929.

Roe Is the New Prohibition

The pro-life movement needs to know that such culture wars result not in outright victory for one side but in reaction and compromise.

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person