History

Representative-elect Bernie Sanders at an orientation for Congressional freshmen, November 28, 1990.

When the Berlin Wall Fell, Bernie Sanders Didn’t Respond Like Other Politicians When the Berlin Wall Fell, Bernie Sanders Didn’t Respond Like Other Politicians

Instead of heralding “the end of history,” Sanders called on Americans to take the revolutions of 1989 as a model.

Dec 22, 2015 / Richard Kreitner

Interned Japanese American Sammy Kimura (Telly Leung) and camp nurse Hannah Campbell (Katie Rose Clarke) perform in Allegiance.

Pacific Overtures on Broadway Pacific Overtures on Broadway

At its best, the Japanese-internment musical Allegiance seethes with righteous anger beneath its perkiness and platitudes.

Dec 7, 2015 / Alisa Solomon

Why Bernie Sanders Should Embrace European Models of Democratic Socialism

Why Bernie Sanders Should Embrace European Models of Democratic Socialism Why Bernie Sanders Should Embrace European Models of Democratic Socialism

American radicalism can’t be confined within US borders.

Dec 4, 2015 / Leon Fink

Start Making Sense: Naomi Klein on the Necessity of the Climate Protests in Paris

Start Making Sense: Naomi Klein on the Necessity of the Climate Protests in Paris Start Making Sense: Naomi Klein on the Necessity of the Climate Protests in Paris

On this week’s podcast, Naomi Klein on the Shock Doctrine and the Paris climate protests, Katha Pollitt on Europe’s refugee crisis, Eric Foner on Woodrow Wilson’s racism, and Joan ...

Dec 3, 2015 / Podcast / Start Making Sense and Jon Wiener

John G. Roberts (left), Chief Justice and chief critic of the Voting Rights Act.

Voting Rights and the Second Redemption Voting Rights and the Second Redemption

Ari Berman’s Give Us the Ballot argues that democratic rights can never be taken for granted.

Dec 3, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Eric Foner

A student shows signs made for a sit-in to demand a range of changes to improve the social and academic experience of black students, at Princeton University, Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2015, in Princeton, N.J.

Woodrow Wilson, Princeton, and the Complex Landscape of Race Woodrow Wilson, Princeton, and the Complex Landscape of Race

The debates over Wilson’s legacy ought to push us to initiate even broader conversations about the presence and power of the past in daily life.

Dec 1, 2015 / Martha A. Sandweiss

Svetlana Alexievich in Minsk, Belarus, October 8, 2015, after she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Conductor of the Anonymous Conductor of the Anonymous

In her oral histories, Svetlana Alexievich orchestrates the voices of Russians trying to reconcile the irreconciliable.

Nov 25, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Sophie Benech

Linda Rosenkrantz with her tape recorder, 1965.

Real, Realist, Realistic, and False Real, Realist, Realistic, and False

Linda Rosenkrantz’s 1968 quasi-novel Talk reminds us that wry self-awareness and anxious fragility are hardly millennial inventions.

Nov 25, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Becca Rothfeld

Ben Carson Isn’t the Only US Politician With a Hand in Shady Latin American Dealings

Ben Carson Isn’t the Only US Politician With a Hand in Shady Latin American Dealings Ben Carson Isn’t the Only US Politician With a Hand in Shady Latin American Dealings

Duane Clarridge’s Iran/Contra history is horrifying—but it’s no worse than Hillary Clinton’s record in Colombia.

Nov 25, 2015 / Greg Grandin

Don’t Be So Quick to Defend Woodrow Wilson

Don’t Be So Quick to Defend Woodrow Wilson Don’t Be So Quick to Defend Woodrow Wilson

It would be a grave mistake to ignore the link between Wilson’s white supremacy at home and his racist militarism abroad.

Nov 24, 2015 / Greg Grandin

x