Historians/History

A Brief History of Presidential Inaugurations

by Rick Shenkman

From the mordant to the dramatic.

The Part of Jimmy Carter’s Legacy Everyone Wants to Forget

by Mitchell Lerner

It’s his role in the sequence of events that led to North Korea’s acquisition of the bomb.

The Shameful Error McGraw-Hill Made Can’t Be Fixed Simply by Covering It Up with Little Stickers

by Pearl Duncan

We need to bring slavery out of the shadows so when we walk down the street we can say, “Slaves Built that.”

Cuban Missile Crisis, October 22: The Day Kennedy Stood Up to the Titans of the Senate (Part 6)

by Sheldon M. Stern

Part 6 in Dr. Stern’s ongoing series on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The War Washington Hasn’t Seen Fit to Commemorate (Though It Cost 116,000 Lives)

by Marilyn Shevin-Coetzee and Frans Coetzee

The shocking answer is World War I. It’s finally getting a memorial, but questions remain about how it's being remembered.

Surprises in a New Account of FDR

by Roger Daniels

A biographer explains why his portrait breaks with the pack.

It’s Time to Rethink Auschwitz If We Want to Understand the Holocaust

by Timothy Snyder

The shooting of Jews over pits preceded and killed more Jews than did Auschwitz. There are good reasons to remember that.

The Horror the Constitution of 1787 Protected Wasn’t Just Slavery. It Was the Domestic Slave Trade.

by Calvin Schermerhorn

Sean Wilentz argues the document was fundamentally anti-slavery. But then there's the slave trade.

Do You Have a Cherokee in Your Family Tree?

by Gregory D. Smithers

A lot of people claim they do. But do they?

This Is How Wild Politics Used to Be

by Greg Bailey

A story from the time of Abe Lincoln that makes our current vim and vigor look almost pale by comparison.

South Dakota: Please Reconsider Your Decision to Dump Early American History

by John Fea

It's worse than the attempts in Texas and elsewhere to change the curriculum to conform to conservative or Christian views of history. 

Why Academic Historians Should Focus Once Again on the American Presidency

by Brian Balogh and Bruce J. Schulman

The time is ripe to restore this field to academic respectability.

The Shameful History of the KKK We Never Knew

by Kevin Waite

The Klan operated in California and other western states after the Civil War. Its target in those states was frequently Chinese laborers.

The Holocaust Story that Remained Largely Untold – Until Now

by R. D. Rosen

The knowable and unknowable story of the hidden child survivors.

Was the Constitution of 1789 Anti-Slavery or Pro-Slavery?

by Ian J. Aebel

The fact that the Constitution has evolved into a freedom protecting document does not change the fact that it was originally written in a manner that protected and prolonged the institution of slavery.

Muhammad Ali and the Supreme Court Case that Redefined the Role of Sports Heroes in American Culture: Part 2

by Mark Weisenmiller

Ali’s victory at the Supreme Court.

Muhammad Ali and the Supreme Court Case that Redefined the Role of Sports Heroes in American Culture: Part 1

by Mark Weisenmiller

Ali’s controversial conversion from Christianity to Islam.

Why We Shouldn’t Think for a Moment that James Madison’s Notes on the Constitutional Convention Were Objective

by Mary Sarah Bilder

Madison’s narrative was always that of James Madison, a member. Continuing for a half century after 1787, he struggled to understand what had happened that summer. Worth knowing this Constitution Day!

150 Years Later How Are We Honoring the Memory of Reconstruction? With the Worst Kind of Irony.

by Adam Arenson

We’re doing it by reenacting its worst elements, from race-based violence to anti-immigrant fear-mongering.

Why Have Jefferson’s Biographers Largely Overlooked His Love Affair with the Work of Laurence Sterne?

by M. Andrew Holowchak and Amy J. Barbee

Here’s what they’ve been missing.