“Mr. Miles His Negro No Hope of Life”
April 13, 2020
John G. Turner— One of the best parts of being a historian is spending time with hard-to-read sources. Admittedly, it’s terrible for the eyes, but we slow down and pay… READ MORE
Category: American History
Donald Trump and the Great Gatsby
April 8, 2020
Greil Marcus— The following advertisement appeared in Elite Traveler, Spring 2013: The Trump International Hotel & Tower New York pays homage to The Great Gatsby—the film adaptation of the iconic… READ MORE
Ben Hecht’s First Day
March 31, 2020
Adina Hoffman— Ben Hecht was always falling in love—though he never tumbled harder and faster into that ecstatic state than he did when he met Chicago. “The city of my… READ MORE
Trump, Sanders, and the Historical Mantle of “Populism”
March 26, 2020
Gregg Cantrell— In the current American election campaign, the headlines invoking “populism” just keep coming. “Trump and Sanders lead competing populist movements, reshaping American politics,” trumpets a typical piece from… READ MORE
The New Populism
March 25, 2020
William A. Galston— Because populism embraces the republican principle of popular sovereignty, it faces the question inherent in this principle: Who are the people? Historically, right-leaning populists have emphasized shared… READ MORE
How Europe’s and China’s Cold War Exits Shape Today
March 16, 2020
Kristina Spohr — It is striking that hardly anybody in East or West in the late 1980s foresaw or imagined the dissolution of the Soviet bloc, let alone the demise of… READ MORE
Did Houdini Really Die after Being Sucker Punched?
March 11, 2020
Adam Begley— When I tell someone I’ve written a book about Harry Houdini for the Yale Jewish Lives series, usually the first thing they say is, “I didn’t know Houdini was Jewish.”… READ MORE
Ben Hecht on the Holocaust
February 27, 2020
David Denby— Ben Hecht was not religious in any way, and ignored such Jewish organizations as the Anti-Defamation League and political causes in general. He was a nonjoiner, a skeptic,… READ MORE
American Presidents and Roman Politicians
February 25, 2020
Luca Fezzi— In the creative chaos of the reflections on the first election campaign won by Barack Hussein Obama in 2008, a daring parallel emerged between the newly elected president… READ MORE
Past and Future Forests
February 24, 2020
Charles D. Canham— The northeast is one of the country’s most thoroughly forested regions, with forests covering two-thirds of the nine northeastern states. But that statistic belies the extraordinary wave… READ MORE
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