Roundup

The first black adolescent to become a millionaire

by Steve Gerkin

Historical records conflict over the issue of the first black female millionaire, though Sarah Rector was the first black adolescent to achieve millionaire status, hands down. Her road to riches involved mandated endowment, racial triumph, and good fortune.

What Is Deism?

by Thomas Kidd

Most deists really did consider themselves serious theists, and many considered themselves devotees of Jesus and his teachings. Their deism was not just a convenient cloak for atheism.

Murky waters: partisanship and foreign policy

by Lewis L. Gould

It’s time to retire the hoary phrase about politics and the water’s edge. It was never a guiding principle of American foreign policy before 1900.

A Biography of ‘The Nation’: The First Fifty Years

by D.D. Guttenplan

Founded by abolitionists to finish the job of Emancipation in 1865, The Nation became a moribund defender of the status quo. But its firm anti-imperialism, and one crusading editor, brought it back to life.

It’s Time to End Tuition at Public Universities—and Abolish Student Debt

by Jon Wiener

In America today, people owe more on their student loans than they do on their credit cards. But there’s a simple and elegant way to end this travesty.

Magna Carta Messed Up the World, Here’s How to Fix It

by Noam Chomsky

The “logic” of capitalist development has left a nightmare of environmental destruction in its wake.

Plan Bibi

by Andrew Meyer

The most recent Israeli election compels Zionists to examine our principles.

Turncoats We Have Known

by Rick Perlstein

How leftists turned into rightists: they projected their own extremism onto the entire left and thus became conservative heroes.

Sanitizing the Nakba, in ‘The New York Times Book Review’

by Liz Rose

Critics say the NYT is continuing to downplay the Nakba.

American Ignorance

by Sanford J. Ungar

Among all the seemingly intractable crises Americans face in the world today, none is so serious as their utter unfamiliarity with that world. It makes every specific overseas problem virtually impossible for us to deal with confidently or competently.

What happens when inmates write a history of their own prison?

by Rebecca Onion

Inmates at America’s oldest women’s prison are writing a history of it—and exploding the myth of its benevolent founders.

From Sharpeville to San Francisco and back again

by Peter Cole

The history behind the name "Human Rights Day"is one of a larger and longer battle for equal rights and justice for all human beings.

Meet Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the black woman who invented that rock and roll sound

by Alexis Madrigal

“She did incredible picking. That’s what attracted Elvis to her.”

Roundup Top 10!

This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editors of HNN.

When The KKK Was Mainstream

by Linton Weeks

Wait a minute. The Ku Klux Klan once had a baseball team?

The New American Order

by Tom Engelhardt

1% Elections, The Privatization of the State, a Fourth Branch of Government, and the Demobilization of "We the People"

Hillary and Historians

by Jeffrey Frank

The email controversy is really about the obstruction of history, the deletion of America’s past, intentional or not.

Putting a Woman on the $20 Bill

Which woman would you pick? 

Israel votes Apartheid

by Neve Gordon

"At least now there will be no liberal Zionist façade, camouflaging Israel’s unwillingness to dismantle its colonial project "

Noam Chomsky on the Roots of American Racism

by George Yancy and Noam Chomsky

Slavery and oppression of nonwhites were built into the foundations of the United States, and they didn’t end in 1865.