History

Another New World

Claudio Lomnitz’s Nuestra América is an account of his Ashkenazi Jewish family’s persistent, sometimes bewildered search across four continents for a language, culture, identity, and place they can call their own.

June 10, 2021 issue

Helen Epstein and Claude Gatebuke

The Roots of Rwanda’s Genocide

Why have so many Western historians, journalists, and human rights investigators failed to grasp why Hutu Rwandans suddenly started killing their Tutsi neighbors in April 1994?

June 10, 2021 issue

Michael Kazin

Ending the Kennedy Romance

The first volume of Frederik Logevall’s biography of JFK reveals the scope of his ambition and the weakness of his political commitments.

May 27, 2021 issue

Peter C. Baker

The Bloodhound

A distinct thread of anger runs through all of Nicholson Baker’s work: anger at what people with power get up to in the shadows, anger at how they lie about it, anger at how we forget.

March 11, 2021 issue

Jenny Uglow

The Reader of Rocks

William Smith’s innovative use of the fossil record helped him create the first detailed geological map of England, Wales, and Scotland.

March 11, 2021 issue

James Romm

What Happened at Masada?

We know the Roman conquest of Masada only through the account of the enigmatic Jewish historian Josephus, whose shifting allegiances make his motives hard to discern.

January 14, 2021 issue

David W. Blight

An American Pogrom

Uncovering the truth about the 1898 massacre of black voters in Wilmington, North Carolina.

November 19, 2020 issue

Fires during the Haitian Revolution; engraving by Jean-Baptiste Chapuy, circa 1791

Fara Dabhoiwala

Speech and Slavery in the West Indies

Slavery was foundational to Britain’s prosperity and rise to global power.

August 20, 2020 issue

The Latest

Susan Tallman

Knowing How

Taking different approaches, two new books tell the story of how expressions of mind have gained hegemony over manipulations of matter, and what has been damaged in the process.

August 19, 2021 issue

Tim Parks

The Eternal Colony

In Sicily there has been a dysfunctional mismatch for centuries between the many different local communities and the ideas and plans of those governing the island from afar.

August 19, 2021 issue

Annette Gordon-Reed

The Color Line

W.E.B. Du Bois’s exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition offered him a chance to present a “graphical narrative” of the dramatic gains made by Black Americans since the end of slavery.

August 19, 2021 issue

Joshua Hammer

Marooned!

Julian Sancton recounts the largely forgotten story of the Belgica’s disastrous Antarctic expedition in the late 1890s.

August 19, 2021 issue

Christopher de Bellaigue

A Visionary Psychopath

The Ottoman sultan Selim I is a near-perfect illustration of Machiavelli’s premise that the powerful individual is the driver of history.

August 19, 2021 issue

Fintan O’Toole

Freedom for Sale

In the 1950s and 1960s, a new generation of American artists began to think of advertising and commercial imagery as the new avant-garde.

July 22, 2021 issue

Josephine Quinn

Ravenna Between East and West

It has been a barbarian city, a holy city, a woman’s city, and a city ruled by Romans, Huns, Goths, Greeks, and bishops.

July 22, 2021 issue

Fred Kaplan

Why Did We Invade Iraq?

The most complete account we are likely to get of the deceptions and duplicities that led to war leaves some crucial mysteries unsolved.

July 22, 2021 issue

Adam Hochschild

All-American Vigilantes

When the US entered World War I, right-wing organizations seized the opportunity to round up leftists, labor organizers, and suspected draft dodgers.

July 22, 2021 issue

Colin Thubron

Pleasure Domes and Postal Routes

Marie Favereau’s new book about the Golden Horde, the great Mongol power of the Eurasian steppe, explores its economy, ideology, and material culture, along with its wider influence.

July 22, 2021 issue