History
Time Is the Universal Measure of Freedom
Labor activists once understood time to be a checking mechanism on market activity.
The False Promise of Obama’s “Promised Land”
In his memoir, the former president makes clear he had no intention of being a savior.
What We Still Get Wrong About Alexander Hamilton
Far from a partisan for free markets, the Founding Father insisted on the need for economic planning. We need more of that vision today.
Untangling Fiction and Reality in the Balkans
On Honeyland, the award-winning documentary from directors Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov.
How Did the GOP Become the Party of Ideas?
If Trump was the end of the “party of ideas,” the rise of Reagan was its start.
How Americans Came to Distrust Science
For a century, critics of all political stripes have challenged the role of science in society. Repairing distrust today requires confronting those arguments head on.
The Gadfly of American Plutocracy
Thorstein Veblen was the most important economic thinker of the Gilded Age.
Museums and Mourning in COVID-19
Museums rose to the challenge of responding to HIV/AIDS. They can do so again in the face of COVID-19.
Is There a War on Thanksgiving?
Some on the right insist that efforts to curtail Thanksgiving are in reality sinister attempts to rewrite the country’s history.
How Latin America Reimagined Classical Economics
The region has a long legacy of critical engagement with classical political economy, helping to change the way we think about markets and morals.
When Democracy Ails, Magic Thrives
West German witchcraft trials after World War II reveal how political rupture can fuel magical thinking.
Why Is America the World’s Police?
U.S. political elites sold the United Nations to the public as a route to global peace. In reality they wanted it as a cover for militarization.
The World Henry Ford Made
On the global legacy of Fordist mass production—and its appeal on both the left and the right.
Is Freedom White?
Talk of American freedom has long been connected to the presumed right of whites to dominate everyone else.
How Early Modern Empire Changed Medicine
Global trade, enslaved labor, and colonial warfare created demands for medicines that would work for anyone, anywhere. That pressure to view patients as interchangeable remains with us today.
American Democracy Is in the Mail
Attacks on the U.S. postal service are attacks on building a more equitable and inclusive society.
The Angel of History
Pestilence and plague have often prompted waves of apocalyptic thinking, calling into question the steady march of progress in human history.
Repertoires of Rage
Anger’s history—along with the very fact that it has one—can shed light on the hypertrophied emotional climate of today.
Tearing Down Black America
In the mid-twentieth century, city governments, backed by federal money, demolished hundreds of Black neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal.
No Democracy Without Archives
The dramatic history of Guatemala’s National Police archive illustrates the crucial role of state archives in protecting democracy.
Get our newsletter
Vital reading on politics, ideas, and culture to your inbox
A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975
Registered 501(c)(3) organization
Help Us Stay Paywall-Free
Become a Member