The Peculiar Case of Ignatius Donnelly The Peculiar Case of Ignatius Donnelly
The Minnesota politician presents a riddle for historians. He was a beloved populist but also a crackpot conspiracist. Were his politics tainted by his strange beliefs?
Dec 12, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Andrew Katzenstein
Can You Understand Ireland Through One Family’s Terrible Secret? Can You Understand Ireland Through One Family’s Terrible Secret?
In Missing Persons, Clair Wills's intimate story of institutionalized Irish women and children, shows how a family's history and a nation’s history run in parallel.
Dec 10, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Emily McBride
How the Western Literary Canon Made the World Worse How the Western Literary Canon Made the World Worse
A talk with Dionne Brand about her recent book, Salvage, which looks at how the classic texts of Anglo-American fiction helped abet the crimes of capitalism, colonialism, and more...
Dec 5, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Elias Rodriques
Along the Roads That Built Modern Brazil Along the Roads That Built Modern Brazil
José Henrique Bortoluci's What Is Mine tells the story of his country’s laborers, like his father, who built its infrastructure, and in turn its fractious politics.
Dec 4, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Jimin Kang
The Long History of the "Elsewhere Museum" The Long History of the "Elsewhere Museum"
Can the ethnographic museum be reinvented?
Dec 2, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Farah Abdessamad
A 150-Year Critique of the Electoral College A 150-Year Critique of the Electoral College
As far back as the 1870s, The Nation opposed the existence of the Electoral College as "so grotesque as to be almost ludicrous.”
Nov 28, 2024 / Richard Kreitner
What’s—Still—the Matter With Kansas? What’s—Still—the Matter With Kansas?
As recent events bear out, when Thomas Frank lamented, “We’ll have to drag the Democrats kicking and screaming to victory" in 2017, if anything he was understating the challenge.
Nov 27, 2024 / Column / Erica Etelson
The Impossible Story of Communism The Impossible Story of Communism
How do you tell the history of a global movement in all its hope and contradiction?
Nov 26, 2024 / Books & the Arts / David A. Bell
Why Americans Are Obsessed With Poor Posture Why Americans Are Obsessed With Poor Posture
A recent history of the 20th-century movement to fix slouching questions the moral and political dimensions of addressing bad backs over wider public health concerns.
Nov 20, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Zoe Adams
Thomas Müntzer’s Misunderstood Revolution Thomas Müntzer’s Misunderstood Revolution
A recent biography of the German preacher and leader of the Peasants’s War examines what remains radical about the short-lived rebellion he led.
Nov 19, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Matt Broomfield