History

US congressman, writer, and scientist Ignatius Loyola Donnelly (1831–1901), circa 1863. He was the member of the US House of Representatives from Minnesota’s Second Congressional District. An engraving by G.E. Perine.

The Peculiar Case of Ignatius Donnelly The Peculiar Case of Ignatius Donnelly

The Minnesota politician presents a riddle for historians. He was a beloved populist but also a crackpot conspiracist. Were his politics tainted by his strange beliefs?

Dec 12, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Andrew Katzenstein

A bunch of flowers marks the spot where 40 infants who died in the Bethany mother-and-baby home were buried in unmarked graves at Mount Jerome graveyard in Dublin.

Can You Understand Ireland Through One Family’s Terrible Secret? Can You Understand Ireland Through One Family’s Terrible Secret?

In Missing Persons, Clair Wills's intimate story of institutionalized Irish women and children, shows how a family's history and a nation’s history run in parallel.

Dec 10, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Emily McBride

How the Western Literary Canon Made the World Worse

How the Western Literary Canon Made the World Worse How the Western Literary Canon Made the World Worse

A talk with Dionne Brand about her recent book, Salvage, which looks at how the classic texts of Anglo-American fiction helped abet the crimes of capitalism, colonialism, and more...

Dec 5, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Elias Rodriques

Along the Roads That Built Modern Brazil

Along the Roads That Built Modern Brazil Along the Roads That Built Modern Brazil

José Henrique Bortoluci's What Is Mine tells the story of his country’s laborers, like his father, who built its infrastructure, and in turn its fractious politics.

Dec 4, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Jimin Kang

Benin Bronzes at the British Museum.

The Long History of the "Elsewhere Museum" The Long History of the "Elsewhere Museum"

Can the ethnographic museum be reinvented?

Dec 2, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Farah Abdessamad

A 150-Year Critique of the Electoral College

A 150-Year Critique of the Electoral College A 150-Year Critique of the Electoral College

As far back as the 1870s, The Nation opposed the existence of the Electoral College as "so grotesque as to be almost ludicrous.”

Nov 28, 2024 / Richard Kreitner

Storming the Winter Palace on October 25, 1917.

The Impossible Story of Communism The Impossible Story of Communism

How do you tell the history of a global movement in all its hope and contradiction?

Nov 26, 2024 / Books & the Arts / David A. Bell

Skeletons used in a museum in Amsterdam. They are posed in various positions for working; sawing wood, doing housework, carrying planks, office work, etc.

Why Americans Are Obsessed With Poor Posture Why Americans Are Obsessed With Poor Posture

A recent history of the 20th-century movement to fix slouching questions the moral and political dimensions of addressing bad backs over wider public health concerns.

Nov 20, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Zoe Adams

A detail of a painting by Thomas Nast.

Slavery in an Age of Emancipation Slavery in an Age of Emancipation

Robin Blackburn’s sweeping history of slavery and freedom in the 19th century.

Nov 19, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Manisha Sinha

The German reformer Thomas Muntzer (1491–1525) and his people during the German Peasants' War (1524–25). Colored engraving. 19th century.

Thomas Müntzer’s Misunderstood Revolution Thomas Müntzer’s Misunderstood Revolution

A recent biography of the German preacher and leader of the Peasants’s War examines what remains radical about the short-lived rebellion he led.

Nov 19, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Matt Broomfield

x