An American historian and lifelong liberal Zionist concludes that Israel's planned annexation of West Bank territory will force people of conscience to choose between liberal ideals and a form of Zionism harnessed to ethnic nationalism.
Senator Charles Sumner lost his battle on the Fourth of July 1870, with dire consequences for both Asian immigrant communities and the prospects of a more racially egalitarian America.
Political separation from Britain allowed old English traits to remain preserved in America, like a bug in amber, even as they were whittled away by change in the old country.
"I don’t think it is fair for a scholar like me to tell a community what sort of monuments it should put up. This should be a local decision—and one that takes into account the perspectives of the entire community, which was not the case with Confederate monuments."
We must now develop a long-overdue Patriotism Index to quantitatively distinguish real Americans from the many poseurs and potential enemies who lurk among us.
As we celebrate America’s birthday on July 4th, let’s remember how our nation’s generosity has aided many hungry and oppressed people around the world.
People have a right to walk around their neighborhood park without being terrorized by iconography devoted to people who denied their ancestors human rights.
Do recent protests against the symbols of racism--monuments and statues--reflect a political movement that can easily be absorbed by today's multicultural corporations, or will that energy sustain a push to fundamentally reform American capitalism too?
On the 4th of July of 1870, a 1,200 mile race between two steamboats on the Mississippi River was decided. The race attracted global interest. Reporters wrote about it. Gamblers wagered on it. People gathered and cheered for it.
The anniversary of the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which finally eliminated slavery in the entire United States, should be made a national holiday.
The repression of political dissent in Czarist Russia led many future revolutionaries to literature as a gateway to political thought; their poetic idealism may have made them both effective and dangerous.
McCarthy rode a wave of bullying and bluster until it broke back on him. Trump has advantages as president that McCarthy didn't, but faces the same problem: his tactics will work until they don't.
It took deep reforms and patience to build trust in policing across the sectarian divide of Northern Ireland after the Good Friday Accords. Does that process have lessons for the United States?
The history of liberal law-and-order reveals that procedural reforms implemented on top of a structure of policing that has been empowered to protect property and control “disorder” are not only doomed to fail but will produce the conditions for more protest and resistance.
Until white Americans reckon with the significance of white supremacy in America, they will deflect a sense of responsibility by laying blame for black suffering on black Americans themselves.
The viral video of the confrontation between birder Christian Cooper and dog walker Amy Cooper in Central park illuminates how nature and race have been constructed in America, giving privileged access to some while turning others into eternal trespassers.
Marian Sims's 1942 historical novel Beyond Surrender was not nearly as popular as Gone with the Wind. But it reminds us today of a history that might have been--both during Reconstruction and in the popular portrayal of the period.
