Historians/History

Real Confederates Never Knew Any Black Confederate Soldiers

by Kevin M. Levin

The story neo-Confederates have been spreading in the weeks since the Charleston shooting that hundreds of thousands of blacks served in the Confederate army are fallacious.

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.”

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.

The Holocaust Story that Remained Largely Untold – Until Now

by R. D. Rosen

The knowable and unknowable story of the hidden child survivors.

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.

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.

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.

Jefferson’s Later-in-Life Fascination with Jesus

by M. Andrew Holowchak and Amy J. Barbee

Though he’s well-known as a skeptic of religion, Jefferson became a fervent admirer of Jesus.

The Medieval Chastity Belt - Myth or Reality?

by Albrecht Classen

It's one of the great jokes history has played on the modern world. 

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.

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.

October 22: The President Makes Certain that His Orders Have Been Carried Out (Part 5)

by Sheldon M. Stern

Another installment in Sheldon Stern's special series on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Middle East Studies Blind Spot

by Jeffrey Herf

The theme of anti-Semitism runs through 20th century Islamism. But most scholars downplay or ignore it altogether.

Is the Public Getting a Skewed Idea of Thomas Jefferson?

by M. Andrew Holowchak

Where once he was lionized, he’s now being demonized.

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.

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.

The Man Who Saved the Manhattan Project

by Michael Hiltzik

His name was Ernest Lawrence, the man Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is named after.

Things Historians Can’t Live Without

by Erik Moshe

We asked dozens of historians what they can’t live without. These are their (often humorous) responses.

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 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!