Historians in the News

How America Escapes Its Conspiracy-Theory Crisis

by David Rhode

Trump's indulgence of conspiracy theorists risks casting the government as the enemy of the people. A new social contract is needed to ensure that this breach doesn't widen. 

When Democracy Ails, Magic Thrives

by Samuel Clowes-Huneke

A new book by historian Monica Black suggests that the irrational was never absent from the postwar order—and, moreover, that florid eruptions of mystical thinking often accompany periods of extreme political upheaval. 

The Woman’s Fight: The Civil War’s Battles for Home, Freedom, and Nation: Washington History Seminar with Thavolia Glymph 11/4

Thavolia Glymph provides a comprehensive new history of women's roles and lives in the Civil War--North and South, white and black, slave and free--showing how women were essentially and fully engaged in all three arenas.

Trump Has Weaponized Masculinity As President. Here's Why It Matters

Historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez says Donald Trump's aggressively masculine political posture is dysfunctional because it requires enemies. 

The Heartbreaking, Controversial History of Mount Rushmore

“What happened with the Black Hills is so clearly theft in relation to the U.S.’s own laws,” says Christine Gish Hill, a professor of anthropology at Iowa State University.

Maryland Archaeologists Unearth Jesuit Plantation’s 18th-Century Slave Quarters

“The Jesuits were prolific in their record keeping, but very little survived on the enslaved African Americans who worked the fields and served the Catholic Church,” says Julie Schablitsky, the highway administration’s chief archaeologist, in the statement.

Grin and Bear It: On the Rise and Rise of Neo-Stoicism

by Hettie O'Brien

"Stoic practices may allow us to live more easily in the world as it is. But politics is as much about conflict as consensus, and depends, at least in part, upon people getting angry."

Shifting the Focus From Sylvia Plath’s Tragic Death to Her Brilliant Life

Heather Clark's new biography of the poet returns focus to her life and work rather than her afterlife.

How Democrats Can Learn Hardball From the Republicans of 1861

The Antebellum slave power suppressed democracy and abolitionism through control of the institutions of American government, from the Senate to the courts to the postal service. Only after secession and the start of civil war did the Republican Party fight back successfully with hardball tactics.

When a Kidnapping Ring Targeted New York’s Black Children (Review)

In “The Kidnapping Club,” the historian Jonathan Daniel Wells describes the circle of slave catchers and police officers who terrorized New York’s Black population in the three decades before the Civil War.

Merrittocracy with Keri Leigh Merritt: Kevin Kruse on the 2020 Election

Kevin Kruse joins host Keri Leigh Merritt to discuss his new book on the Department of Justice in the Civil Rights Era and the relevance of that history to the 2020 election. 

Radical Protests Propelled the Suffrage Movement. Here’s How a New Museum Captures That History

A prison employee named Irma Clifton was instrumental in preserving the site's legacy as the place where suffrage picketers in Washington DC were incarcerated, beaten and tortured in 1917.

Not Every U.S. Presidential Race Has Been Decided on Election Day. Here’s What to Know About America’s History of Contested Elections

by Olivia B. Waxman

“The Constitution does not tell you what should happen if there are disputed returns in a presidential election,” says Eric Foner. “We are in uncharted waters if disputes arise as to who carried a state.”

Control, Alter, Delete:Hong Kong Activists and Academics are Hurrying to Digitize Historical Records

Museums dedicated to the struggle for civil liberties in Hong Kong face a crisis to preserve records in the face of new public safety laws aimed at curbing criticism of the People's Republic of China. 

Q&A: Historian Rick Perlstein on Media ‘Bothsidesism,’ and Why 2020 Definitely Isn’t 1968

Rick Perlstein has been reluctant to do media appearances, perceiving that journalists may use historical analogy as a shortcut to investigating and explaining the present. He discusses his thoughts on history and the media with CJR. 

In Battleground North Carolina, Donald Trump Is Taking Jesse Helms’s Last Stand

Donald Trump's chances in North Carolina depend on whether he can successfully deploy the politics of white resentment mastered by the state's longtime senator Jesse Helms. 

Misremembering the British Empire

Priya Satia's new book “Time’s Monster” joins a dense body of scholarship analyzing liberal justifications for empire. 

To Understand The Spectacle Of Presidential Debates, Look Back To 1960, Says Harvard Historian

Fred Logevall, author of a new JFK biography, discusses the 1960 presidential debates between Kennedy and Nixon. 

If only Richard Nixon had Listened to Jackie Robinson — The GOP Might be Doing Better than Trump Today

by Paul Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick

Despite Jackie Robinson's intercession, Richard Nixon's moment of indecision in 1960 allowed Jack Kennedy to connect his campaign with the cause of Martin Luther King and civil rights. 

"Time's Monster" by Priya Satia Review – Living in the Past

Time’s Monster is a book about history and empire. Not a straightforward history, but an account of how the discipline of history has itself enabled the process of colonisation, “making it ethically thinkable”.