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History News Network

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Roundup Top 10!


No matter what he does, history says Trump will never be popular

by Michael Kazin

Presidents who’ve lost the popular vote don’t win popular support.


Why Trump and Mueller aren't Clinton and Starr

by Julian Zelizer

This comparison misses something pretty fundamental. Starr was working under the independent counsel law that Congress passed in 1978. So Clinton couldn't fire him.


Donald Trump’s Plan to Save Western Civilization

by Stephen Wertheim

The president promised an “America First” foreign policy, but he’s taken on something far more ambitious.


The new Detroit’s fatal flaw

by Heather Ann Thompson

Fifty years ago, Detroit burned. The new Detroit is making the same mistakes.


Are school vouchers bad because early proponents had racist motivations?

by Jonathan Zimmerman

Call it the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree fallacy: If something had evil roots, it remains evil.


How Did We Become A Billionaires’ Republic?

by Jedediah Purdy

A new book argues that the Constitution’s framers believed that vast concentrations of wealth were the enemy of democracy — so what happened?


Revisiting H.L. Mencken in The Age of Trump

by Frank Fear

“On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of this land will reach their heart’s content at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”


The Democrats: A party that wants to die but can’t pull the plug

by Corey Robin

Democrats and Republicans alike have fallen for the myth that job training programs work. They never do. And this is the Democrats' "new" proposal?


Summer of Love and Rage

by Todd Gitlin

If you were in the ghettoes of Newark, Detroit or scores of other cities that summer, you were not wearing flowers in your hair. Forget about utopia: You were staking out, in action, fury and bitterness.


Was the Founding Generation Right to Worry?

by Sarah Swedberg

Americans’ current level of concern about the mental health of the man serving in the White House goes beyond what many of us have seen in our lifetimes, but, like all concerns, this one, too has a history.