Recently Published

The Pandemic Exposed a Major Flaw in America’s Health Care System

by Robert Brent Toplin

The crisis may create an opportunity to do what once seemed impossible: deliver universal healthcare and end the employer-based insurance system.

Pandemic, Pandering and Prejudice: Trump's Effort to Weaponize Xenophobia

by James D. Zirin

Blaming China and threatening reprisals is not going to save any lives. It won’t open up the country any sooner. It won’t create a single job. But it might just get Trump re-elected--at least he thinks so.

Honor the Work of Brazil's Villas-Bôas Brothers by Protecting the Amazon's Indigenous

by John Hemming

The Villas-Bôas brothers worked with Brazil's indigenous people to balance the preservation of their Amazonian lands with inclusion in modernizing society. The policies of Jair Bolsonaro are a dire threat to their work, the survival of indigenous peoples, and the planet.

Tolerance and Violence: The Fate of Religious Minorities During The Plague under Christianity and Islam

by Selina O'Grady

A historian of monotheistic religion argues that the Islamic world showed greater tolerance of religious minorities during medieval plagues than did Christendom. Yet tolerance is a poor model for intercultural cooperation in our current crisis.

The Social Psychology of Popular Right-Wing Conservatism

by Daniel Burnstein

Right-wing conservative movements are driven by a psychological complex of threat and hostility to heterodox opinion that makes them difficult to stop once they've developed.

Will History Judge Trump? Only if We Preserve Our Capacity for Judgment

by Christine Adams and Nina Kushner

The idea of truth reached by reason and evidence is under grave threat. Historians must find ways to publicly defend their methods for the good of history and society.

No More Business as Usual! It’s Time for Joe Biden to Defend our Democracy

by Claudia Koonz

A historian of European dictatorship argues that Joe Biden must recognize that not just the election but the health of democracy is at stake and challenge the administration's efforts to operate above the law.

A Memorial Day Lament for Capt. Wilfred Owen, Sgt. Joyce Kilmer, and the Needless Dead of Foolish Wars

by Walter G. Moss

The horrific scale of slaughter in the first World War can be understood, ironically, through the tragedy of a single lost life. Walter Moss considers the deaths of two poets in France.

Citizen’s Arrest: Racist at its Roots

by Alan J. Singer

Georgia's Citizens's Arrest law has always been used to enable and support white supremacy since its enactment during the Civil War.

"The News Will Get Out Soon Enough": Homefront Jim Crow and the Integration of the U.S. Navy

by Dan C. Goldberg

Politico reporter Dan Goldberg's new book details how thirteen black men overcame prejudice and indifference to integrate the Navy's officer corps in 1944. 

The Post Office is Mentioned, but Not Protected, by the Constitution

by David Head

If the day comes when the USPS, like privateering, has outlived its usefulness, the Constitution will prove no obstacle. The only question that matters is the practical one: does the postal service accomplish its mission better than the alternatives?

What the New Evidence on Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust Means

by Rafael Medoff

In the end, whatever their respective reasons, the Pope and the president both opted to look away from the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time.

Amid the Coronavirus Pandemic, America’s Billionaires Thrive and Prosper

by Lawrence Wittner

Americans may wonder whether the nation can afford to maintain a small, parasitic stratum of society in splendor during economic collapse and pandemic.

100 Years of Political Spectacle: Women, Political Protest, and the White House

by Bernadette Crehan and Susan Liebell

Like suffrage protesters a century ago, nurses demonstrating at the White House to demand adequate protection for frontline medical workers can win by taking on the President on the grounds of spectacle and social media to shape public opinion. 

Morning or Mourning in America? Political Advertising and the Politics of Emotion

by Wendy Melillo

The Lincoln Project's recent "Mourning in America" ad seeks to connect Donald Trump to deep misery in America. The history of political advertising suggests it's likely to work.

The Unfulfilled Potential of Progressive Democracy after World War II

by Isser Woloch

After the military defeat of Nazism, the governments of Britain, France and the United States made uneven and incomplete progress to remake their societies along more egalitarian lines, but their efforts should be seen as part of an international trend.

Who Can Learn From Taiwan? Apparently not WHO

by Keith Clark

The World Health Organization is unable to effectively learn from Taiwan's response to COVID-19 because the agency adheres to a "One China" policy that doesn't recognize both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan. 

Coronavirus Exposed the Contradictions Behind the Curtain. Will Americans Pay No Attention?

by Walter L. Hixson

Liberal centrism has come up short in the COVID-19 crisis. Decades of cold war demonization of social democracy have made it disturbingly likely that an American fascism will fill the void.

What Happened to My Future: The Pivotal Years of 1914, 1929, and 2020

by Walter G. Moss

There aren't many comparisons to 2020 as a year when illusions of normalcy and prosperity were shattered. 

Hong Kong Apocalypses: Teaching the Recent Past and the Speculative Future

by James Carter

The chaos of Hong Kong's recent protests and the Coronavirus unsettled a historian's sense of the boundary between past and present. Perhaps we understand either only through the mirror of the other.