Sean Wilentz The Immunity Con For the first time in American history, the supreme judicial authority is parsing how much criminality to permit the chief executive. May 1, 2024
Sean Wilentz The Revolution Within the American Revolution Supported and largely led by slaveholders, the American Revolution was also, paradoxically, a profound antislavery event. October 23, 2023
Scott W. Stern A Toxic Bottom Line “Solidarity between the environmental and labor movements would be powerful because it could provide a vision of a future that isn’t based on extraction.” March 25, 2023
Annette Gordon-Reed Uprooting Rights The draft opinion looks back longingly to a nineteenth-century understanding of who was in control and whose lives mattered. May 9, 2022
Gary Gerstle When Americans Liked Taxes The US idea of liberty has often seemed to mean freedom from government and its spending. But there is an alternate history, one just as foundational and defining. February 23, 2022
Scott W. Stern An AIDS Activist’s Archive The obituaries saved by one social worker are, essentially, a list of names and the barest outlines of biography. But in their silences, they contain multitudes. October 29, 2021
Alissa Quart Anti-Rent Wars, Then and Now Amid the 1840s economic crisis, landlords tried to drive out tenants in default. The remarkable movement that rose to challenge evictions can be a model for today’s housing activists. October 25, 2021
Imani Perry Dredging Up the Ever-Living Past “History itself is a form of storytelling. We learn about the human condition, about decency, about love, about cruelty, about all manner of matters.” July 17, 2021
Sean Wilentz Bob Dylan, Historian Across the six decades of his career, the singer-songwriter has mined America’s past for images, characters, and events that speak to the nation’s turbulent present. June 19, 2021
Michael Kazin The Enduring Promise of Moral Capitalism “To put political muscle and government funding behind the Constitution’s vow ‘to promote the general Welfare’ has been and remains the best way to unify Democrats and win.” May 15, 2021