Roundup

Four Years Of Doing Activist History

by William Horne

The founder of the Activist History Review argues that the mantle of scholarly neutrality must be rejected: it allows historians to abdicate the responsibility to fight forms of abuse and exploitation that they understand intimately, and will never shield the profession from political attacks. 

Trump’s Grotesque Violation of the First Amendment

by Garrett Epps

The people own the streets—not the police, not the military, and not Donald Trump.

Loosening Public-Health Restrictions Too Early Can Cost Lives.

by Nancy Bristow

On Jan. 25, 1919, nearly 2,000 San Franciscans showed up at Dreamland Rink for a public meeting of the Anti-Mask League.

Seeing Black History in Context

by Erin Aubry Kaplan

It’s the perfect time to get real about America’s shortcomings.

How music took down Puerto Rico’s governor

by Verónica Dávila and Marisol LeBrón

Underground music overcame censors to gain popularity and political power.

The biggest fight facing the U.S. women’s soccer team isn’t on the field

by Lindsay Parks Pieper and Tate Royer

The history of women in sports and the discrimination they have long faced. 

Join my Nato or watch critical thinking die

by Niall Ferguson

A new red army is out to silence debate. We must rise up and resist it.

Video of the Week 1: Rhae Lynn Barnes on the History of Blackface and the Virginia Racism Scandal

Americans Must Face Violent History of Blackface Amid Virginia Gov. Racist Photo Scandal

The mistake NATO was formed to correct — and how President Trump is repeating it

by Gregory Mitrovich

Allies abandoned one another in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1940s, they paid the price.

How WW II American Leaders in North Africa Learned to Disregard the Interests of Jews

by Michael Doran

Old fashioned anti-Semitism played a role, but the greater part had to do with a fear, justified or not, of provoking the Arabs.

Why Jefferson’s vision of American Islam matters today

by Denise A. Spellberg

What history shows is that Islam is very much an American religion. 

What Roger Ailes Learned From Richard Nixon

by David Greenberg

The mastermind of Fox News played on the cultural resentment he learned working for the Nixon White House.

The FBI’s War on Civil Rights Leaders

by Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar

Steeped in its own racism, without any checks or balances, the FBI devoted more resources to harming the civil rights movement than any other task in its purview.

In Putin’s Russia, History Is Subversive

by Andrew Foxall

Putin is re-writing the past to justify authoritarianism in the present.

We have Lincoln wrong

by Harold Holzer and Norton Garfinkle

Too often, we settle for the idea that Lincoln fought to save a mythical union. He really fought for opportunity

Xi’s history lessons

The Communist Party is plundering history to justify its present-day ambitions

The Dream World of the Southern Republicans

by Howell Raines

Demographics are transforming Southern society. Will the G.O.P. respond in time?

Auschwitz: the men behind the mass murder

by Emma McFarnon

What sort of man was capable of creating the site of the largest recorded mass murder in history?

The Colorblind Bind

by Richard Rothstein

Focusing college-student recruitment on poor neighborhoods can overlook middle-class African Americans entitled to affirmative action

Free speech: another weapon in the war against abortion in the US

by Ruth Rosen

In a dramatic turn of events last week, the US Supreme Court overturned a 2007 law that separated and protected women who sought abortions and health care from the zealots who intimated and threatened them.