Current Events that Relate to History
-
NarrativeThe Progressive President and the AHA
Theodore Roosevelt and the historical discipline.Perspectives on History -
Book ReviewYou Must Do Something
Tracing John Lewis’s lifelong fight for democracy and inclusion.London Review of Books -
Book ExcerptOn the Mysteries, Real and Imagined, Surrounding Christopher Columbus
Columbus lives on as a political and cultural symbol—hero, villain, myth—revealing how belief, not fact, shapes history.Literary Hub -
ComparisonTransatlantic Perspective on Liberty
Rose Wilder Lane in the 1930s decried Europe's repressive government. Who's freer now?Law & Liberty -
Book ReviewThe A.I. Boom and the Spectre of 1929
As some financial leaders fret publicly about the stock market falling to earth, a new book recounts the greatest crash of them all.The New Yorker -
CommentAmerican Labor’s Shameful History of Support for Zionism
The US labor movement has never been neutral: its union officialdom has a more-than-century-long history of allying with Zionism.Jacobin -
exhibitVoting Rights: A Retrospective
Voting, a right not initially enshrined in the Constitution, has been secured, revoked, and contested since the nation's founding era.
From the HNN Archive
-
How to Succeed in Government Without Really Trying
The long history of promising an “efficient” federal government. -
If the Slipper Doesn’t Fit
A scorched shoe is a crucial part of Zelda Fitzgerald’s modern mythology. But there’s no proof it existed. -
Indifferent to the Fate of Freedom Elsewhere
Jimmy Carter is known for his defense of human rights worldwide. But in 1979, he threatened to deport thousands of Iranian student protesters. -
Elevating the Few
What JD Vance excludes from the history of the Civil War and immigration. -
Whose Side Are College Administrators On?
There’s a long history of politicians targeting student protesters — and of campus leaders abetting those efforts. -
Solve for AI
What the history of the pocket calculator reveals about the future of AI in classrooms. -
“At Any Future Time”
In 1880, the daughter of a Welsh politician turned to fiction to expose perspectives missing from the official record, upending histories for generations to come. -
Letting the World Scream
In 1984, the U.S. rejected the International Court of Justice’s jurisdiction, revealing its tendency to ignore international rules it sees as unfavorable — even when it helped write them. -
Scared Out of the Community
Between 1929 and 1939 approximately half a million Mexicans left the United States. Many of the departing families included American-born children to whom Mexico, not the United States, was the foreign land. -
When Good Housekeeping Meant Getting Vaccinated Against Polio
The pages of 1950s lifestyle magazines offer a glimpse of a time when childhood vaccines were anything but controversial.