History

Naming America’s Own Genocide

Naming America’s Own Genocide Naming America’s Own Genocide

In a commanding new book, Benjamin Madley calls California’s 19th-century elected officials “the primary architects of annihilation” against Native Americans in the state. Reading ...

Aug 17, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Richard White

Yaa Gyasi

Leaving Home to Go Home Leaving Home to Go Home

Yaa Gyasi’s ideas about fiction are suffused with her lifelong attention to the fluctuating shadows that race casts on American life.

Aug 12, 2016 / Erin Vanderhoof

Before the 1 Percenters, There Were the Uzedas

Before the 1 Percenters, There Were the Uzedas Before the 1 Percenters, There Were the Uzedas

In The Viceroys, Frederico De Roberto’s novel of the Risorgimento, the Uzeda family corrupts everything it touches.

Aug 10, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Frederika Randall

Oneida John Humphrey Noyes

Oneida’s Original, Utopian Vision Oneida’s Original, Utopian Vision

Championing the free market is compatible with the company’s original free-love doctrine: The fierce desire of men to feel competent bankrolls both.

Aug 8, 2016 / Hannah Gold

Across the Border

Across the Border Across the Border

A new biography of William Henry Ellis reminds us how much we still don’t know about the elusive history of racial subterfuge in America.

Jul 21, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Michael A. Elliott

Gabby Douglas at the 2012 Olympic trials in San Jose, California (Peter Read Miller)

Out of Sight, Top of Mind Out of Sight, Top of Mind

A new book conveys the powerful role photography plays in sports. But the photographers are still something of a mystery.

Jul 15, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Ian F. Blair

Malcolm X with King Faisal

The Political Uses of Malcolm X’s Image The Political Uses of Malcolm X’s Image

For Muslim youth, interest in the black freedom movement is part of a larger turn toward an American conception of race—it fills a political void and offers a sense of belonging. B...

Jul 12, 2016 / Hisham Aidi

Kwame Nkrumah statue

The Insufficiency of Pan-Africanism as We Know It The Insufficiency of Pan-Africanism as We Know It

The fact that many people identify, however loosely, with being African doesn’t replace the need for the services that only a government can provide.

Jul 7, 2016 / Anakwa Dwamena

Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices

Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices

At a time when populism is in vogue, the Nobel Laureate has gone in the opposite direction. We need to read her and listen to the people she hears.

Jul 6, 2016 / Books & the Arts / John Palattella

Burger_Nixon

A Supreme Legacy A Supreme Legacy

The conservative legacy of the Burger Court lives on in the precedents it set.

Jun 23, 2016 / Thomas Healy

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