History

Mark Twain’s Many Lives

Mark Twain’s Many Lives Mark Twain’s Many Lives

A new biography depicts the different sides of the American author.

Aug 11, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Adam Hochschild

A pedestal that once held a statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike sits near Judiciary Square on August 5, 2025, in Washington, DC.

Trump Wants to Make the Confederacy Great Again Trump Wants to Make the Confederacy Great Again

The president is making a big push to rewrite the past in favor of some of America's top historical traitors, racists, and scumbags.

Aug 6, 2025 / Chris Lehmann

Magnus Hirschfeld, 1899.

Magnus Hirschfeld’s Forgotten Revolution Magnus Hirschfeld’s Forgotten Revolution

The Weimar physician advocated for a more fluid understanding of sexuality and gender—a pioneering idea that was erased by the rise of Nazism.

Aug 5, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Lizzie Tribone

Swimmers in the Rio Grande River, 2007.

The Story of America Can Be Found on the Banks of the Rio Grande The Story of America Can Be Found on the Banks of the Rio Grande

Richard Parker’s love letter to El Paso, The Crossing, argues that the Texas city can illustrate the best and the worst of the nation’s history.

Aug 4, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Kyle Paoletta

A community member holds a candle by the “Say Their Names” art installation cemetery with headstones representing Black people killed by police, during a vigil marking the fifth anniversary of George Floyd's death, at George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25, 2025.

It Has Never Been Easy to Be Both Black and American It Has Never Been Easy to Be Both Black and American

The administration knows that subduing history as it is doing works to keep people of color in this country disunited and at odds with each other.

Jul 28, 2025 / Keenan Norris

Gazan children playing in the rubble of the Islamic Univerity

Challenging the Silence Over Palestine in the American Historical Association Challenging the Silence Over Palestine in the American Historical Association

Institutional complicity in injustice.

Jul 24, 2025 / Van Gosse

Matilde “Sacha” Artes, of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, in Buenos Aires, 1985.

The Argentine Grandmothers Who Resisted the Junta The Argentine Grandmothers Who Resisted the Junta

Haley Cohen Gilliland’s A Flower Traveled in My Blood looks at the efforts of a human rights group to find the children and grandchildren who were disappeared by a dictatorship.

Jul 24, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Jacob Sugarman

Illustration by Eric Drooker DROOKER

The Enduring Lessons of Wages for Housework The Enduring Lessons of Wages for Housework

Emily Callaci’s history of the international feminist movement examines the influence of their intellectual and political victories.

Jul 22, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Maia Silber

Jürgen Habermas in Berlin, Germany, 2018.

Jürgen Habermas Still Believes in Modernity Jürgen Habermas Still Believes in Modernity

A conversation with the German theorist about the history of Western philosophy and more.

Jul 7, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

Left: Ford to City: Drop Dead reads front page of the New York “Daily News” for October 30, 1975. Right: Felix Rohatyn seated in front of a microphone.

The Death and Rebirth of New York City The Death and Rebirth of New York City

A new documentary about the 1975 fiscal crisis, Drop Dead City, is entertaining to watch but dangerously misleading as history—or politics.

Jun 24, 2025 / Doug Henwood

x