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Film
Framing White Nationalism in Spike Lee's 'BlacKkKlansman'
Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman most dramatically reveals how race is a performance, not a biological essence, as it focuses on the importance of language in structuring racial representations.
21 Nov 2018
Books
'May We Forever Stand' Explains Why "Lift Every Voice and Sing" Is an Immortal Song
"Lift Every Voice and Sing" has been embedded in black America's DNA for more than 100 years. We've sung it every February ever since Black History Month was a thing, and every December since Kwanzaa was a thing.
18 Oct 2018
Books
On a Turning Point for Martin Luther King, Jr.
Biographer Patrick Parr takes readers through a vital and decisive phase of Martin Luther King Jr.'s life virtually unexplored by other biographers.
05 Oct 2018
Books
Civil Rights Document, 'A More Beautiful and Terrible History', Is Revelatory, Sobering and Relevant
Theoharis's work is deeply (and sadly) relevant to our current condition. Many of the same issues Theoharis decries -- media inattention, liberal passivity on racial justice issues, government harassment of activists -- are still in play.
19 Jul 2018
Books
The Rationality of Violence: The Kerner Commission and the Riots of 1967
Separate and Unequal provides a riveting account of a crucial moment in US history. It offers a penetrating insight into the manner in which good intentions and just causes necessarily confront the mechanisms of governmental bureaucracy.
16 Jul 2018
Featured: Top of Home Page
Is This the Death of Democracy in America?
The United States has pulled back from the brink of authoritarianism before. But a new study reveals the daunting challenges the country faces in preserving its democracy.
19 Apr 2018
Books
'Bunk' Joins the Dots Between Barnum and Trump
Kevin Young painstakingly presents the history of hoaxes and why we keep falling for the same old shtick.
04 Apr 2018
Books
'A Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux, 50th Anniversary Edition' Is a Treasure
There's really nothing quite like this in other collections of "primitive" art, or even in the grand narrative painting from the European tradition.
23 Mar 2018
Books
'Chocolate Cities' Draws New Maps of Black American Life
A classic Parliament track inspires a new look at how black Americans moved, made connections, and created a nation-within-a-nation.
12 Mar 2018
Books
'Cartoon County' Life in Post-WWII America
Cartoon County reminds that beneath a post-WWII decade of seeming complacency and prosperity, comics strips were clear reflections of a society in transition.
16 Feb 2018
Books
'Soul of a Nation' and 'The Wall of Respect' Prompt New Looks at Cutting-edge Black Art
No matter where you are on the wokeness spectrum, the Black Power era has yet to stop informing.
01 Feb 2018
Books
A Weak Case for the Important Issue of 'Muslims and the Making of America'
A book like Muslims and the Making of America is necessary in these times, and it's for that very reason that Hussain's effort is so disappointing.
18 Jul 2017
Reviews
Nobody Won the 'War for the Soul of America'
Andrew Hartman’s engaging exploration of the culture wars confirms that the conflicts will never be resolved because both sides are too extreme for America's moderate middle-ground.
01 Jun 2015
Politics
The Love of Light: Gore Vidal, 1925 - 2012
We must approach any consideration of Gore Vidal's vast body of work with fear and trembling, because if we do not properly understand and absorb his wisdom, we will have missed yet another opportunity to truly grasp American history and identity.
21 Aug 2012
Reviews
'The President is a Sick Man': Delightfully Underhanded Stories of Deception and Manipulation
Matthew Algeo's engaging book takes an obscure piece of history and crafts it into an engrossing narrative.
26 Jul 2011
Culture
Art and the American Evolution: The Arts of the Americas Wing at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
In America, art tells the story of an early predominance of classical European ideals, the emergence of a national identity amidst civil war, and the melting-pot existentialism that dominated a media-obsessed 20th century.
30 Jun 2011
Politics
Lynd Ward and Walt Disney: Illustrators of America's Tumultuous History
Much as Walt Disney would do with his famed television programs of the '50s and '60s, Lynd Ward used his talents with watercolor, oil, brush and ink, mezzotint, and lithography to illustrate hundreds of inspiring historical biographies of true-life American heroes for children to admire and emulate.
03 Feb 2011
Culture
The Urinal: A Brief Functional and Aesthetic History
How the history of the urinal is the history of America.
Andrew Howe
01 Feb 2011
Books
Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln by John Stauffer
In John Stauffer's capable hands, the tug-of-war between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass is a study in the evolution of both a friendship and a political world view.
25 Feb 2010
Politics
Howard Zinn: The Dying of a Light
A tribute to the signature interwar polymath: the historian, activist, dramatist, dockyard worker and teacher Howard Zinn.
21 Feb 2010
Books
East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart by Susan Butler
Butler's book illustrates the fact that Amelia Earhart became the embodiment of adventurous spirit because she was such a formidable force.
16 Nov 2009
Books
Slumming: Sexual and Racial Encounters in American Nightlife, 1885-1940 by Chad Heap
If you want to understand race and sexuality in the United States, don't bother with policy -- look at entertainment!
08 Oct 2009
Books
Leaving India by Minal Hajratwala
“Each time we move, we must leave something of ourselves behind; perhaps then the map of a Diaspora consists, like a constellation, mainly of gaps.”
24 Jun 2009
Books
Meriwether Lewis by Thomas C. Danisi
Danisi and Jackson claim a definitive explanation for Lewis' dramatic final act, and move to dispel the more sensationalist and macabre embellishments that have tarnished his reputation in the 200 years since his death.
08 Jun 2009
Books
Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, by John Stauffer
Stauffer demonstrates in amusing and enlightening fashion the pivotal role fisticuffs and fighting had in helping Lincoln and Douglass define themselves and take control of their fates.
17 Nov 2008
Books
It Still Moves by Amanda Petrusich
Petrusich is not concerned with how many records are sold or what tactics artists use in the studio. Her approach is more intangible, hence more emotionally tactile.
29 Oct 2008
Books
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
American Exceptionalism has the potential to spur great innovation and bring about profound change, yet it can also be a destructive, insular force that pits the country against those who dare question its authority.
Michael Patrick Brady
23 Oct 2008
Books
The United Symbolism of America by Robert Hieronimus and Laura Cortner
The symbols aren’t sinister -- we’ve just forgotten how to read them. These days, if something isn’t clear in a literal sense, it is inherently suspicious.
Michael Noble
11 Aug 2008
Books
A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans by Michael Farquhar
You may be galvanized to the point that you grab foolish historical forgetfulness by the throat and form a William J. Burns awareness society.
Kim Simpson
19 May 2008
Books
The Jamestown Project by Karen Ordahl Kupperman
For as long as it's been a part of history, the colony at Jamestown has been a bit of an older, ugly stepsister compared to the Pilgrims at Plymouth.
Michael Patrick Brady
29 Aug 2007
Books
American Food Writing by Molly ONeill [Editor]
Any food lover will tell you that to learn about a culture, one can do no better than to pull up a chair and pick up a fork.
Erika Nanes
01 Aug 2007
Books
The Fabric of America by Andro Linklater
Linklater offers an account of the extent to which clearly demarcated boundaries, of both the states and the nation, contributed to the formation of the American character.
Frank Wilson
16 Jul 2007
Books
The Jamestown Project by Karen Ordahl Kupperman
All nations need foundation tales. If they don't exist, it's necessary to invent them. And if the real story doesn't play well, foundation myths come in handy. At least until the real story comes back to bite.
Carlin Romano
17 May 2007
Books
Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America 1919 by Ann Hagedorn
A turbulent year overlooked in its niche between the Great War and the Roaring '20s... when hope dissolved into disappointment and fear put a chokehold on social progress.
Pat McCoid
09 May 2007
Books
Doing Nothing by Tom Lutz
Lutz's book is charming and graceful, long on anecdote and telling details, if perhaps short on coherent story or even organizing principle.
Jason B. Jones
08 May 2007
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