Roundup

The Senate Drone Report of 2019

by Tom Engelhardt

Looking Back on Washington’s War on Terror

Fantastically Wrong: What Darwin Really Screwed Up About Evolution

by Matt Simon

"There was a bit of a problem with all of this natural selection stuff, though: Darwin didn’t know how it, uh, worked."

Obama and the Beginning of the End of the Cuban Embargo

by Amy Goodman

The failed United States policy against Cuba, which has for more than half a century stifled relations between these neighboring countries and inflicted generations of harm upon the Cuban people, may finally be collapsing.

When J.F.K. Secretly Reached Out to Castro

by Michael Beschloss

There was a meeting just a few days before the president’s assassination to discuss overtures to Castro.

America: Australia's Dangerous Ally

by Malcolm Fraser

Australia should not embrace America, writes its former prime minister, but preserve itself from Washington’s reckless overreach.

How did American higher education evolve?

by Scott Jaschik

An interview with Roger L. Geiger, author of The History of American Higher Education: Learning and Culture From the Founding to World War II (Princeton University Press).

The other story of Hanukkah

by Jonathan Zimmerman

How the Jewish holiday became distinctly, wonderfully, American

They Said ‘No’ to Torture: The Real Heroes of the Bush Years

by Jon Wiener

Hidden in the Senate torture report are stories of some heroes—people inside the CIA who from the beginning said torture was wrong, who tried to stop it, who refused to participate.

The Rocky Road to Tara

by Chris Nashawaty

It took three years, cost a princely sum and threatened to go off the rails more times than David O. Selznick cared to count. But against all odds, Gone With The Wind stayed the course–and turned out to be an epic for the ages.

Dec. 14, 1799: The excruciating final hours of President George Washington

by Dr. Howard Markel

It was a house call no physician would relish.

Netflix ‘Chinese Game of Thrones’ charts the life of Marco Polo – so who was he?

by George Lane

It is a name that most will have heard of, but few, perhaps, actually know much about.

Roundup Top 10!

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

Why 1940s America wasn’t as religious as you think — the rise and fall of American religion

by Tobin Grant

It’s common for people to believe that religion was always more vibrant in the past.

An Arab Prince Denounces Islamism

by Daniel Pipes

The crown prince of Bahrain (an island kingdom in the Persian Gulf and home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet), candidly analyzed the Islamist enemy and suggested important ways to fight it.

What we learned from the CIA Torture report: An interview with Tom Blanton

by Tom Blanton

What we didn't know until now.

The Secret History of the Clinton White House

"One senior Clinton figure confided to us during a casual lunch break that she would occasionally be in meetings of the highest historical importance and find that not a soul was taking notes."

What does it feel like to push a button, launch a surface-to-air missile, and blow a B-52 bomber out of the sky?

by David Freed

A Vietnamese missile man’s story

Five Reasons Why Marco Polo Remains Fascinating

by John Man

We care about Marco, as we care about Cinderella, because his story touches our collective unconscious.

Why the Founding Fathers thought banning Torture Foundational to the US Constitution

by Juan Cole

The Bill of Rights of the US Constitution is full of prohibitions on torture, as part of a general 18th century Enlightenment turn against the practice.

Israel, Academics and One-Sided Debates

by Steven Hochstadt

"I despair of ever seeing peace come to the one place where Jews are not a minority."