Jill Lepore’s book is the civics course Americans need
At the heart of her narrative is the fate of two political ideals: liberty and popular sovereignty.
How American Protestant missionaries helped usher in post-Protestant America
David Hollinger shows how the social gospel principles that drove mission abroad boomeranged back home.
The resentment that capitalist modernity leaves in its wake
What do terrorists and populist nationalists have in common? They're fueled by inequality.
Why existentialism still matters
Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Camus have something to say about living authentically.
Populist fever: Anger at the democratic deficit
Populism is a predictable recurring feature of any society that is unwilling or unable to be as democratic as it claims to be.
Culture war fatigue?
Some have dismissed the culture wars as a sideshow. Andrew Hartman insists that the issues at stake in cultural politics are real.
The Age of Acquiescence, by Steve Fraser
Why was the first Gilded Age a time of sometimes violent resistance, while ours is an age of acquiescence? Steve Fraser's answer is twofold: capitalism has changed, and so has the social imaginary that enfolds it.
Days of Fire, by Peter Baker
Few Americans today could identify any of FDR’s vice presidents. Yet little surprise is occasioned by Peter Baker’s treatment of Dick Cheney as a costar with George W. Bush.
Kill Anything that Moves, by Nick Turse
The My Lai massacre of March 1968—the murder of 500 South Vietnamese men, women and children by U.S....
History & current events
Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in America War and Diplomacy, by Andrew Preston....
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The Short American Century and The World America Made
In February 1941, Henry Luce, the formidable publisher of Time, Life and Fortune, published one of the most memorable op-eds in the history of American journalism....
War Time, by Mary L. Dudziak
One of the notable features of the Obama administration’s foreign policy has been its disavowal of the locution, if not necessarily the policies, of the “war on terror” declared by George W....
The liberal agony: Why there was no new New Deal
In 2008, both enthusiasts and enemies of a new New Deal misjudged Obama. They also misjudged the circumstances he faced.
Unwarranted Influence, by James Ledbetter
The most famous farewell addresses in the history of the American
presidency are those delivered by two of the greatest military leaders
to occupy the office: George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower. Both
warned of the threat that military power and its interests posed to the
nation.