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Thomkins H. Matteson's painting of George Jacobs' witchcraft trial in 1855

The Salem Witch Trials Actually Happened in Danvers, Massachusetts

Tensions between Salem and Danvers were there from the start—contributing to the ensuing witch hysteria.
A drawing of a woman looking inside the door of a church where children are playing.

The Quiet Revolution of the Sabbath

Requiring rest, rather than work, is still a radical idea.
Painting of the english surgeon Edward Jenner inoculating a child.

How Far Back Were Africans Inoculating Against Smallpox? Really Far Back.

When I looked at the archives, I found a history hidden in plain sight.

Doing the Work

The Protestant ethic and the spirit of wokeness.
Map of John Proctor's 15 acres of property in Ipswich, MA

"The Crucible" and John and Elizabeth Proctor of Salem

It is worth digging a bit deeper into the family matters between John and Elizabeth.
Cover page of "Cotton Mather's Spanish Lessons." Beige cover with a small red image of a tonsured monastic scribe with a book in front of him, evidentally engaged in scholarship.

Structures of Belonging and Nonbelonging

A Spanish-language pamphlet by Cotton Mather explodes the Black-versus-white binary that dominates most discussions of race in our time.
Samuel Adams.

Hanged on a Venerable Elm

The shadow of Samuel Adams, a crafty and government-wary revolutionary, lingers over the January 6 Capitol insurrection.
People sitting on a hill overlooking a harbor

How We Became Weekly

The week is the most artificial and recent of our time counts yet it’s impossible to imagine our shared lives without it.

Why the History of the Vast Early America Matters Today

There is no American history without the histories of Indigenous and enslaved peoples. And this past has consequences today.
Illustration of the Salem Witch Trials, with a "witch" appearing to levitate books

My Witch-Hunt History, and America's: A Personal Journey to 1692

Revisiting America's first witch hunt — and discovering how much of it was a family affair. My family, that is.
Detail of Anti-Slavery Picnic at Weymouth Landing, Massachusetts (c1845) by Susan Torrey Merritt. Courtesy the Art Institute of Chicago

New England Kept Slavery, But Not Its Profits, At a Distance

Entangled with, yet critical of, colonial oppression and the evils of slavery, the true history of Boston can now be told.
Medical men wearing masks at a US Army hospital

Why Do We Forget Pandemics?

Until the Covid-19 pandemic, the catastrophe of the Spanish flu had been dropped from American memory.
A man standing at a crossroads holding an American flag.

The Wasting of the Evangelical Mind

The peculiarities of how American Christianity took shape help explain believers’ vulnerability to conspiratorial thinking and misinformation.
The book cover for "They Knew They Were Pilgrims."

A History of the Pilgrims That Neither Idolizes Nor Demonizes Them

Historian John Turner tells the story of Plymouth Colony with nuance and care.

On the Insidious ‘Laziness Lie’ at the Heart of the American Myth

Devon Price wonders why we equate sloth with evil.

The Edge of the Map

Monsters have always patrolled the margins of the map. By their very strangeness, they determined the boundaries of the regular world.

We Hold These Ideas to Be Self-Evident

Michael Kimmage considers "The Ideas That Made America: A Brief History" by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen.

How Cults Made America

A new book argues that, politically, messianic movements were often light-years ahead of their time. But at what cost?

Learning from Jamestown

The violent catastrophe of the Virginia colonists is the best founding parable of American history.
Lithograph of John Winthrop.
partner

What We Get Wrong About ‘A City on Hill’

And why we need to rediscover its real meaning.
Trump with eyes closed and head bowed as evangelist Paula White leads a prayer at the White House.

The Christian Nationalism of Donald Trump

The debate among American Christians over globalism and nationalism is nothing new — rather, it has been going on for decades.

“The Town Was Us”

How the New England town became the mythical landscape of American democracy.
The book "The Handmaid's Tale"

Margaret Atwood on How She Came to Write The Handmaid’s Tale

The origin story of an iconic novel.

Why a Woman Who Killed Indians Became Memorialized as the First Female Public Statue

Hannah Duston was used as a national symbol of innocence, valor, and patriotism to justify westward expansion.

Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker: A Scandal of the Self

The long historical roots and continuing relevance of the disgraced preacher's story.
A painting of George Whitefield preaching to a crowd.

Darkness Falls on the Land of Light

Divisions in society and religion that still exist today resulted from the "Great Awakenings" of the 18th Century.

How Trump Is Making Us Rethink American Exceptionalism

This past year has shown that the U.S. is far from immune to the forces shaping the rest of the world.
Title page and verso of the first edition of "A Christmas Carol."

A Plea to Resurrect the Christmas Tradition of Telling Ghost Stories

Though the practice is now more associated with Halloween, spooking out your family is well within the Christmas spirit.
Illustration of the harmful effects of alcohol on a Seneca village

America's First Addiction Epidemic

The alcohol epidemic devastated Native American communities, leading to crippling poverty, high mortality rates — and a successful sobriety movement.

A “Thorough Deist?” The Religious Life of Benjamin Franklin

Historian Thomas S. Kidd examines the tension between Benjamin Franklin's deism and his frequent religious rhetoric

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