The Latest 
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Jeff Sessions's Troubling Legacy
Ronald L. Feinman
Unfortunately, Sessions’ ideas and policies live on through Trump adviser Stephen Miller.
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Romantic Angst in the 1950s Drought Stricken Midwest of The Rainmaker
Bruce Chadwick
Would the old magic of the charlatan rainmaker still be there? Would the powerful grip of the old film still drown its audience in emotion?
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Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.
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The Washington Nationals Should Stop Letting Teddy Win – He Hated Baseball
Ryan Swanson
The history of baseball's great Roosevelt chase and why Teddy Roosevelt never liked baseball.
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Bearing Human Cargo: 400 Years Since the Arrival of the First African Slaves in the American Colonies
Albinko Hasic
Although 1619 remains a historic marker, overemphasizing the date or dismissing the long and complicated history of slavery in the Americas would be a mistake.
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When Clowns Rule the World
Michael A. Genovese
Why are so many world leaders today literal or figurative clowns? Our century has ushered in the Age of the Clown Politician.
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“This letter is the last that I write to you:" The Courage of Youth Resisters in World War 2 France
Ronald C. Rosbottom
Young people's impatience, their perceptive view of a better tomorrow, their faith in the power of solidarity, and their energetic fearlessness reminds us adults that change is possible.
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Many Historians Got It Wrong on Obama's Foreign Policy
Jeremy Kuzmarov
Many historians appear to have been so mesmerized by Obama’s charisma and progressive domestic policies that they cannot properly criticize the foreign policy of Obama.
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Walkability Is at the Heart of Human Societies
Antonia Malchik
We’ve forgotten about shared space, about public roads, and the fact that tens of thousands of years of human history demonstrates a profound need for the daily, in-person interactions walkability provides.
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The Civil War and the Black West
William Loren Katz
The integral role people of color played in winning the Civil War.
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The Ever-Present Billy the Kid: Protagonist of the Old West
Richard W. Etulain
Interest in the Kid remains uniformly high, but the predominant images of him in the past half century in histories, biographies, novels, and films have notably shifted.
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Book Review: Jeremy Black's Imperial Legacies
Jeff Roquen
While Black lapses into a biased apologia and generalizes at the expense of factual evidence, Imperial Legacies, on the whole, delivers a long overdue re-contextualization of the British Empire.
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The History and Mythology of the Mayflower Arrival in 1620
Martyn Whittock
The true history of the Mayflower's arrival in 1620.
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We Need a Unifier in 2020
Walter G. Moss
Many of America's enlightened leaders have advised against divisive politics. In 2020, we would do well to remember that.
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The Cultural History Behind Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood
David L. O'Connor
Like most folktales, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is filled with interesting characters, events, and messages from a bygone era.
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Russian History Gives the United States an Ominous Warning
Laura Engelstein
What can Russia's tumultuous history teach us about the brevity of stable governments.
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America’s Self-Cultivation Crisis
Tracy Dahlby
Sustained work at self-cultivation makes for a more even-keeled society.
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We Must Stop Valuing Guns More Than People
Greg Bailey
Fom garlic festivals to shopping malls, from schools and churches and synagogues, there is a darkness in the soul of America.
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Art and Defacement: Basquiat at the Guggenheim
Sam Ben-Meir
The Guggenheim’s glance back to 1983 and the death of Michael Stewart accomplishes what art exhibitions should, but all too rarely do – it grants us perspective on our present moment.
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Donald Trump is no James Monroe
Mike Purdy
Donald Trump falls short of James Monroe in four key areas.
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The Greatest Generals Across Generations
Benjamin Runkle
The Greatest Generation’s generals’ triumphs were anything but predetermined, and required a series of accidents and twists of fate to bring them to the point where their innate courage, intelligence, and determination could be decisive.
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Tiananmen Square-1989: Beijing’s Amnesia and Memory Hole
Kevin M. Shanley
Revisiting Tiananmen Square 30 years later.
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Can Muslims get a fair shake in India?
B.Z. Khasru
By scraping Kashmir's special autonomy status, Modi has taken a dangerous step toward implementing the vision of his ultra-nationalist party's spiritual guru, the late V.D. Savarkar.
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Counterculture 1969: a Gateway to the Darkest and the Brightest
Harlan Lebo
The question of how counterculture emerges is a reflection of an era, with results that produced the worst and best of a generation.
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1919, the Year of Racial Violence: An interview with David Krugler
Robin Lindley
In his new book 1919, The Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought Back, professor Krugler goes beyond previous histories of this tumultuous period by putting African Americans at the center of the story.
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Blog
An Open Letter to Senator Elizabeth Warren
Steve Hochstadt
"I have believed for some time that the way for any Democrat to beat Trump is for all Democrats to emphasize what unifies you, or us."
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Please stop saying the past is in the past. It isn’t.
Perry Greene
Nike dropped its Air Max USA 1 shoe after former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick worried that the “Betsy Ross” flag design harkens back to an era of black slavery and has been used by white nationalist groups.
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The Constant Threat of Mass Shootings Requires Increased Protection for Presidential Contenders
Ronald L. Feinman
In the not-so-distant past, two presidential candidates running for office in the midst of American chaos and division were shot.
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Samantha Smith's Dream of Peace and Nuclear Disarmament
William Lambers
Samantha Smith taught us your voice matters and you can make a difference in ridding the world of nuclear weapons and achieving peace for all.
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Woodstock, The Moon Landing and Sesame Street, Too: 50 Years of American Cult Art
Bruce Chadwick
The Norman Rockweel Museum is celebrating the year 1969 not with an exhibit about politics or history, but one about how artists showcased their work in that one, single year.
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Reflecting on Patriotism in the Trump Era
Vaughn Davis Bornet
As we celebrated our nation’s birthday, a lot of us wanted to feel patriotic. Our White House occupant clearly got in the way!
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Remembering The Red Summer 100 Years Later
David Krugler
How should the challenging but essential task of remembering and commemorating this troubling history be confronted?
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Trump’s Tariff War Resembles the Confederacy’s Failed Trade Policies
Robert Brent Toplin
If the present conflict over tariffs leads to diminished Chinese involvement in American affairs, the Trump administration’s risky trade fight may resemble the Confederates’ foolish gamble on the diplomatic clout of King Cotton.
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When Republicans Encouraged Immigration
Jason H. Silverman
Whereas Trump espouses a “go back where you came from” ideology, Abraham Lincoln endorsed the first, last, and only bill in American history to actually encourage immigration.
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The Professor Who Was Ostracized for Claiming the Civil War Was About Slavery – In 1911
Stephen Leccese
Sometimes when we’re poking around in an archive, we come across century-old documents that are strangely relevant.
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JSTOR Interview Archive Helps Preserve History
Alex Humphreys
The new JSTOR Interview Archive prototype preserves full length interviews with historical figures for educators, students, and researchers.
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PubMed Central Offers a Historical Treasure Trove
Jeffrey S. Reznick, Christy Henshaw, Laura Randall, Rosalyn Leiderman, and Kathryn Funk
The digitization of medical journals now allows access to valuable historical research opportunities.
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“Mr. Straight Arrow,” John Hersey, and the decision to drop the atomic bomb
D. M. Giangreco
What recent histories getsright--and wrong--about Harry S. Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan.
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How Two Regicides Escaped to America and Became Folk Heroes
Matthew Jenkinson
How Edward Whalley and William Goffe went from household names to forgotten historical figures.
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FDR's Token Jewish Refugee Shelter
Rafael Medoff
Granting temporary refuge was a way of addressing the life-and-death crisis that Europe’s Jews faced, without incurring the wrath of those who opposed permanent immigration.
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Woodstock at 50: A Conversation with Award Winning Filmmaker Barak Goodman
Jonathan Montano
Goodman's latest documentary, "Woodstock: Three Days That Changed a Generation," premieres on PBS August 6th.
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All the world’s a stage when you’re Boris Johnson basking in the no-deal-Brexit spotlight
Esau Williams
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, the boy who once said he wanted to be ‘world king,’ has finally realized his life-long ambition of becoming British Prime Minister.
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Blog
How African American Land Was Stolen in the 20th Century
Steve Hochstadt
At the heart of the story is racism in many forms: how the promise of emancipation after the Civil War was broken; how whites used bureaucracy and twisted legalisms to take black land from owners t...
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Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.
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Leonardo da Vinci: Still a Genius 500 Years Later
Bruce Chadwick
The Berkshire Museum, in Pittsfield, has a large and impressive exhibition called “Leonardo da Vinci: Machines in Motion,” produced by the Da Vinci Museum, in Florence, Italy.
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Dear Moderators of the Presidential Debates: How About Raising the Issue of How to Avert Nuclear War?
Lawrence Wittner
That question might seem overwrought but, in fact, the U.S. government and others are increasing the role that nuclear weapons play in their “national security” policies.
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White Nationalists and the Legacy of the Waffen-SS from Postwar Europe to Today
Adrian Gilbert
Recently there has been a trend to rehabilitate Waffen-SS veterans from Eastern European countries and to reconsider them as patriots rather than agents of Nazi tyranny.
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Racism in America: What We Can Learn from Germany’s Struggle with Its Own Evil History
James Thornton Harris
If slavery is the "interstate highway system of the American past," it has yet to appear on the cultural road map of most Americans.
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Is Stonehenge a Tourist Rip-Off?
Ken West
If Stonehenge is to be restored to its rightful heritage then it must be reengaged with the River Avon and its tribal lands. Only then can we interpret the astounding achievement of these prehistoric people.
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Invented in the Fifties, Adolescence Swallowed the Nation—And Now the White House, Too
Tracy Dahlby
The fixation with our president’s juvenile leadership style overlooks a deeper one: America’s obsession with eternal adolescence.
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The Long History of Unjust and Lawless Attorneys General
Ronald L. Feinman
It isn't just William Barr.
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Would Slavery Have Ended Sooner if the British Won the American Revolutionary War?
Keith Brooks
After its victory, the U.S. went on to become an empire unparalleled in history, its wealth origins rooted largely in slave labor.
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Reconsidering Journalist and Gay Activist Randy Shilts
Andrew E. Stoner
The story of Shilts and the mixed legacy that remains a quarter century later has connecting points to our contemporary lives.
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Is Trump the Worst President in History?
Richard Striner
“Worst,” of course, is a value judgment and any number of our presidents were very bad indeed — or so it could be argued.
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(Re)-Claiming a Radical Evangelical Heritage at Christian Colleges
Louis B. Gallien, Jr.
The recent controversies at my alma mater, Taylor University, over the invitation of Vice President Mike Pence’s to deliver their Commencement Address have illuminated the continued fissures at evangelical Christian colleges.
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History is a Verb, Something You Do: An Interview with Mark Doyle
Erik Moshe
“History can help us understand the structural forces that foster suspicion, prejudice, resentment, and violence, and once we understand those forces we can begin to make better choices not just about how we live our own lives, but how we order our societies.”
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Joe Biden is a Product of His Time
Donne Levy
When assessing past attitudes, it is important to recognize that most people are influenced by the thinking of the day.
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Blog
Another Kind of Patriotism
Steve Hochstadt
The messages of the Pow Wow were clear: “We are patriots. We love our land and our unique culture. We love America and have defended it in every war. We welcome and respect all Americans.&rdq...
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Can You Ever Tame the Shrew? Is She Really the Shrew?
Bruce Chadwick
This Taming of the Shrew is a madcap romp through history, literature and the woods. It is a lot of fun.
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Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.
News
- Historian Tom Engelhardt Revisits His First Piece of Critical History – 48 Years Later
- Heather Cox Richardson: Trump isn’t the first president to compare himself to Jesus — the last one who did ‘planned to lead his white supremacist supporters to victory’
- Historians' archival research looks quite different in the digital age
- Senate Historian Daniel S. Holt Featured on Political Theatre Podcast
- The Way We Do the Things We Do: Making History-Making Visible
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