Current Events that Relate to History
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Book ReviewAbsolute Values
Fara Dabhoiwala’s case against free speech.The Point -
CommentThe 40-Year-Old Book That Predicted Our Dystopian Politics
Neil Postman's classic "Amusing Ourselves to Death" predicted a dystopian American future.Made By History -
Book ExcerptThe Lost Art Of Thinking Historically
We must see the world as actors of the past did: through a foggy windshield, not a rearview mirror, facing a future of radical uncertainty.Noema -
Book ReviewAmerica’s Coal Age
Black gold powered the United States’ transition from backwater to global hegemon.The American Conservative -
ExplainerGun Culture Then and Now
Firearm ownership meant something very different when the United States was founded.Vital City -
CommentHow National Self-Sufficiency Became a Goal of the Right
What looks like Trump-era economic nationalism has deep roots. German nationalists of the 1800s and fascist leaders of the 1930s imagined power through autarky.Jacobin -
exhibitEpidemic Proportions
How Americans have understood epidemics, from the Columbian Exchange to COVID-19.
From the HNN Archive
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How to Succeed in Government Without Really Trying
The long history of promising an “efficient” federal government. -
So Ductile Is History in the Hands of Man!
The past and present of counterfactual history, from antiquity to the Napoleonic Wars to a few very active subreddits. -
Indifferent to the Fate of Freedom Elsewhere
Jimmy Carter is known for his defense of human rights worldwide. But in 1979, he threatened to deport thousands of Iranian student protesters. -
Elevating the Few
What JD Vance excludes from the history of the Civil War and immigration. -
Whose Side Are College Administrators On?
There’s a long history of politicians targeting student protesters — and of campus leaders abetting those efforts. -
Solve for AI
What the history of the pocket calculator reveals about the future of AI in classrooms. -
“At Any Future Time”
In 1880, the daughter of a Welsh politician turned to fiction to expose perspectives missing from the official record, upending histories for generations to come. -
Letting the World Scream
In 1984, the U.S. rejected the International Court of Justice’s jurisdiction, revealing its tendency to ignore international rules it sees as unfavorable — even when it helped write them. -
Scared Out of the Community
Between 1929 and 1939 approximately half a million Mexicans left the United States. Many of the departing families included American-born children to whom Mexico, not the United States, was the foreign land. -
When Good Housekeeping Meant Getting Vaccinated Against Polio
The pages of 1950s lifestyle magazines offer a glimpse of a time when childhood vaccines were anything but controversial.