20th century

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  9/3/2022
  

  Brad DeLong's "Slouching Toward Utopia" Calls a Close to the Prosperity of the Long 20th Century

  Particularly for Americans, the period between 1870 and 2010 was a miracle of sustained and growing prosperity. But Brad DeLong also says that it's over. 

• 
• 8/29/2021
  

  A Brief History of the "Isolationist" Strawman

  by Brandan P. Buck

  As the United States enters another round of agonizing soul searching after another lost war, Americans should learn the fraught political history of the "isolationist" label.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  6/16/2021
  

  The Rise and Fall of an American Tech Giant

  Writer Kaitlyn Tiffany considers the impact of the Kodak company's product on American culture and the city of Rochester where she grew up, and the way that digital technology has changed both. 

• 
• 5/30/2021
  

  The Enduring Fascination – And Challenge – Of World War II

  by Earl Ofari Hutchinson

  This Memorial Day offers the chance to read about and reflect on World War II, particularly the stories of ordinary people trying to understand world-changing events, and consider our time's connections to past and future. 

• 
• 2/21/2021
  

  Neal Gabler's "Catching the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Liberal Hour"

  by James Thornton Harris

  Neal Gabler's first volume of a biography of Ted Kennedy praises the long-serving senator as the driving force of a hugely consequential period of liberal legislative success. Those looking for gossip or consideration of his personal failures may be disappointed.

• 

• How Democrats Lost the Great Plains

  by Ross Benes

  Ross Benes argues that the Democratic party has lost an entire political generation of influence in the Great Plains by forfeiting the region's legacy of farmer populism, making the Plains a Republican stronghold and a barrier to progressive legislation. 

• 
• SOURCE: Library of Congress
  2/3/2021
  

  The History of American Isolationism with Charles Kupchan: Thurs. Feb. 11

  Join the John W. Kluge Center for a discussion of the evolution of U.S. statecraft with Charles Kupchan, author of a new book, Isolationism: A History of America’s Effort to Shield Itself from the World.`

• 
• SOURCE: Aeon
  10/2/2020
  

  This Vanishing Moment and Our Vanishing Future: John Hersey, Hiroshima, and the End of World

  Postwar prosperity depended on a truce between capitalist growth and democratic fairness. Is it possible to get it back?

• 
• 8/9/2020
  

  Reflections from "That Further Shore": A Constitutional Lawyer's Immigrant Family History

  by John Feerick

  John Feerick's work in constitutional law helped create the 25th Amendment, and an unadopted amendment to abolish the Electoral College. His recent family history and memoir shows how his immigrant parents laid a foundation for this success. 

• 
• 5/10/2020
  

  Are We Repeating Some Chapter of World History?

  by Peter N. Stearns

  Did I hear some smart aleck student mumble something about Santayana?

• 
• SOURCE: Harvard Gazette
  4/13/2020
  

  Reporting on the World Between the Wars

  Historian Nancy F. Cott tells the story of the interwar period through the lives of four American foreign correspondents.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/28/2020
  

  They Survived the Spanish Flu, the Depression and the Holocaust: They Have Some Advice For You

  Two extraordinary women — one 101, the other 95 — lived through the worst of the 20th century. They have some advice for you.

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  1/22/20
  

  The Myth of Middle-Class Liberalism

  by David Motadel

  The bourgeois are supposed to ensure open, democratic societies. In fact, they rarely have.

• 
• SOURCE: AP
  1/18/20
  

  Prohibition began 100 years ago, and its legacy remains

  Featuring Harvard history professor Lisa McGirr, whose 2015 book “The War on Alcohol” examines Prohibition’s political and social repercussions.

• 
• SOURCE: Smithsonian Magazine Online
  11/26/19
  

  A Brief History of the Crock-Pot

  Eighty years after it was patented, the Crock-Pot remains a comforting presence in American kitchens.

• 
• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  10/2/19
  

  Black Workers and Consumers in the Long Civil Rights Movement

  by Aimee Loiselle

  Historian Aimee Loiselle discusses Traci Parker's new book Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement: Workers, Consumers, and Civil Rights from the 1930s to the 1980s.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  September 21, 2019
  

  An Improbable Relic of Auschwitz: a Shofar That Defied the Nazis

  The daughter of a Holocaust survivor has brought forward a ram’s horn trumpet and her father’s account of the power of belief amid death.