Roundup Top 10!

The North tried compromise. The South chose war. by Carole Emberton The South's insistence upon protecting and spreading slavery caused the Civil War.

How to Be Less Stupid About the Civil War by Ta-Nehisi Coates "For the past 50 years, some of this country’s most celebrated historians have taken up the task of making Americans less stupid about the Civil War."

What Should We Do with Confederate Monuments? by Dane Kennedy A standing-room-only crowd gathered at the Rayburn House Office Building to hear three leading authorities on the subject: David Blight, Karen Cox, and Gaines Foster.

America Has Been Fighting Over Statues Since the Founding by Stephen F. Knott Two centuries ago, another monument fight captured American politics: Hamilton vs. Jefferson.

What Is Really Unprecedented About Trump? by Julian E. Zelizer In many respects, the way that the president thinks about politics is utterly conventional.

Students today don't know enough by John Haas "I’ve found that I really need to watch my vocabulary. It is not just technical terms that lose them. Words I would have never thought the least bit arcane are unknown to them."

Gurriel was wrong to mock Darvish's eyes, but why? by Jonathan Zimmerman There's an ugly two-century record of Westerners denigrating Asian eyes.

Paleo Politics by Jedediah Purdy What made prehistoric hunter-gatherers give up freedom for civilization?

The Perishable Politician by Antoine Lilti Our enduring, unhealthy relationship with celebrity presidents.

The Cuban Missile Crisis at 55 by James G. Blight and Janet M. Lang “The bullshitter…does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.” —Harry G. Frankfurt, "On Bullshit"