#1 In Defense of Empire   by Robert D. Kaplan

  It can ensure stability and protect minorities better than any other form of order. The case for a tempered American imperialism.

  THE ATLANTIC

  #2 Lessons from the Little Ice Age   by Geoffrey Parker

  The Little Ice Age of the seventeenth century triggered global disruptions to civilization. Policymakers need to heed the warning.

  NEW YORK TIMES

  #3 Madman in the White House   by James Rosen and Luke Nichter

  This time, it's the Russians who are making use of Nixon's "madman theory."

  FOREIGN POLICY

  #4 Good for the Bushes and the Clintons, but Not Good for America   by Jonathan Zimmerman

  Since 1980, presidential politics have heavily featured two families. But dynasties aren't what's best for democracy.

  LOS ANGELES TIMES

  #5 Think Russia's Land Grab is Unique? Think Again.   by Timothy Garton Ash

  Just ask Turkey.

  LOS ANGELES TIMES

  #6 Rand Paul Doesn't Stand a Chance   by Michael Kazin

  Libertarianism may be on the rise, but it has no real chance of taking over the Republican Party, much less the nation.

  THE NEW REPUBLIC

  #7 Mao Won the Battle, Chiang Kai-shek Won the War   by Robert D. Kaplan

  History will prove the defeated Generalissimo had a greater impact on modern China than its most famous father.

   FOREIGN POLICY

  #8 A Fond Farewell to Jonathan Schell   by Jim Sleeper

  Schell represented a WASP cultural sensibility and poured it into the beginnings of a transracial, global civil society.

  WASHINGTON MONTHLY

  #9 Ready for World War III?   by Murray Polner

  Remember Winston Churchill's key to Russian action: Russian national interest.

  NYTIMES EXAMINER

  #10 The My Lai Massacre Just Got Worse   by William J. Astore

  CBS News has an article that shows that President Richard Nixon sought to cover up the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War.

  CONTRARY PERSPECTIVE

#2 Stokely Carmichael’s Legacy Is Less Recognized Black History by Peniel E. Joseph

The SNCC leader and black power icon who later became Kwame Ture is as vital as, but less celebrated than, Martin and Malcolm.

THE ROOT

#3 Pete Seeger: Folkie, Communist, Millionaire by Stephen Mihm

Financial success dogged Seeger far more tenaciously than McCarthy ever could.

BLOOMBERG

#4 The LBJ Delusion by John Aloysius Farrell

Why Obama can't just have his way with Congress.

POLITICO MAGAZINE

#5 Don’t Let Putin Grab Ukraine by Timothy Snyder

If the present crisis ends with the fragmentation of the Ukrainian state, the result will be disastrous for all concerned, including Russia.

NEW YORK TIMES

#6 Mexico’s Vigilantes on the March by Enrique Krauze

Mexico's social unrest is in no small part due to its democratization.

NEW YORK TIMES

#7 The Unquiet Ghosts of Nazi Germany by Timothy W. Ryback

"Generation War" sparks a new debate about Germany's Nazi past.

NEW YORK TIMES

#8 Japan Stokes Regional Tension by Constantine N. Vaporis

Saddled by historical trauma, Japan and South Korea inch toward confrontation.

AL JAZEERA AMERICA

#9 California’s Two Droughts by Victor Davis Hanson

An affluent society didn’t bother to add to the inherited system of canals and reservoirs that made it thrive.

NATIONAL REVIEW

#10 How L.B.J. Pushed Through Kennedy’s Tax Cut by Bruce Bartlett

It wasn't just the Civil Rights Act LBJ pushed through in the aftermath of Kennedy's 1963 assassination.

NEW YORK TIMES

#2 Training Historians and the Dual Degree by Merlin Chowkwanyun and Karen M. Tani

The dual-degree program offers a potential solution to the history PhD problem.

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

#3 Abe’s NSA? The Japanese Government Embraces Secrecy by Alexis Dudden

It's not just the United States which is obsessed with secrecy.

DISSENT MAGAZINE

#4 Totalitarian Troubadour by John Fund

We shouldn’t forget that Pete Seeger was Communism’s pied piper.

NATIONAL REVIEW

#5 In Defense of Pete Seeger, American Communist by Bhaskar Sunkara

Like his party associates, Seeger was consistently on the right side of history.

AL JAZEERA AMERICA

#6 The Real Scandal Behind the Yale Course Website by Jonathan Zimmerman

Should Yale have shut down a Web site allowing users to compare student evaluations of the university’s courses? Of course not.

WASHINGTON POST

#7 Can Imperial History Ride to Heritage’s Rescue? by Andrew Thompson

Imagine a Britain without Stonehenge or Hadrian’s Wall. That very well could have been a reality if it hadn't been for the 1913 Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act.

IMPERIAL & GLOBAL FORUM

#8 The Pacific Pivot by John Feffer

Why America’s strategic rebalance is really just retreat.

TOMDISPATCH

#9 Loot No Longer by Doreen Carvajal

French authorities continue to struggle to return looted art.

NEW YORK TIMES

#10 No Evidence of Aliens Helping Ancient Cultures by Bradley T. Lepper

So why do three out of four Americans believe otherwise?

COLUMBUS DISPATCH

#2 Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was True by Eric Schlosser

The perils of an accidental nuclear war were perilously high in the 1950s and 1960s.

THE NEW YORKER

#3 Demonization and Hatred by Howard P. Segal

The ASA's continued boneheaded decision to support BDS.

TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION

#4 The Illusions of Net Neutrality by Richard John

It's time to abandon inaccurate assumptions about how the digital economy works.

AL JAZEERA AMERICA

#5 "Duty" and the Taint of the Tell-All by Victor Davis Hanson

Robert Gates’s insider memoir is the latest in a dishonorable genre.

NATIONAL REVIEW

#6 The Racially Fraught History of the American Beard by David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz

“Washes and razors for foofoos," scoffed Walt Whitman. But the story of nineteenth-century facial hair is more tangled than modern nostalgists may realize.

THE ATLANTIC

#7 U.S. Should Speak Truth to Japan by Gregg Andrew Brazinsky

It’s time for the U.S. to get serious about reining in Japan.

CNN

#8 Slavery Is Having a Hollywood Moment. What About the Rest of Black History in America? by Michael Kazin

A steady diet of slavery movies misses the long-term oppression -- and resistance -- of black Americans.

THE NEW REPUBLIC

#9 Is the Fifth Republic Burning? by Robert Zaretsky

Future historians may well decide the Fifth Republic died as it was born: in a traffic accident.

NEW YORK TIMES

#10 Nelson Mandela Was A Committed Communist by Ronald Radosh

South African journalist Rian Malan has new revelations about Mandela's relationship with the Communist Party.

PJ MEDIA

#1 Why the "War on Poverty" Isn't Over by Stephanie Coontz

And why it was actually a remarkable success.

CNN

#2 The Heroes of 1989 by Padraic Kenney

There never was a dull moment in 1989 for fans of democracy and popular protest, twenty-five years ago.

BOSTON GLOBE

#3 Was Harry Truman a Zionist? by John B. Judis

Harry Truman's concerns about Israel and Palestine were prescient—and forgotten.

THE NEW REPUBLIC

#4 Japan's Resurgent Nationalism by John Feffer

Shinzo Abe is a right-wing nationalist who wants to revive Japan as a "normal" military power. He has been brusque in his rhetoric and his actions.

HUFFINGTON POST

#5 The ASA's Next Boycott! by Martin Kramer

An only slightly tongue-in-cheek parody of the ASA.

SANDBOX (BLOG)

#6 How to End Lead Wars in America by David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz

Lead poisoning must come to an end -- at least in San Francisco.

HUFFINGTON POST

#7 Our Politics May Be Polarized. But That’s Nothing New. by David W. Brady and Hahrie Han

Political science provides an answer.

DEUTSCHE WELLE

#8 For India's Sikhs Amritsar Casts a Long Shadow by Amit Chaudhuri

India's politics bears the scars of the 1984 Golden Temple massacre – whether or not Britain had a role.

THE GUARDIAN

#9 Generations a Slave: Unlawful Bondage and Charles Carroll of Carrollton by Julita Braxton

A half century before, in the courts of the neighboring Upper South state of Maryland, Charles Mahoney successfully challenged the legality of his enslavement.

NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY

#10 The Israel Double Standard by Victor Davis Hanson

The prejudice against Israel in diplomatic matters is as troubling as more crude bigotry against Jews.

NATIONAL REVIEW

#1 New York Times Room for Debate: Turning Away From Painful Chapters

What happens when we ignore ugly truths about the past -- when families bury their dark secrets, and nations try to forget their sins?

NEW YORK TIMES

#2 Why Presidents Stopped Talking About Poverty by Jeff Shesol

LBJ was the last president to talk about poverty in a substantive way.

THE NEW YORKER

#3 LBJ's Mistake Was Promising to "Win" the War on Poverty by Jonathan Cohn

How to measure whether or not the "war on poverty" worked.

THE NEW REPUBLIC

#4 The Smartest Book About Our Digital Age Was Published in 1929 by Ted Gioia

How José Ortega y Gasset's The Revolt of the Masses helps us understand everything from YouTube to Duck Dynasty.

THE DAILY BEAST

#5 America's Real Problem: Too Much Bipartisanship by Julian Zelizer

Consensus views encapsulate what's really wrong in Washington.

CNN

#6 Bitcoin Is a High-Tech Dinosaur Soon to Be Extinct by Stephen Mihm

Sorry, but Bitcoin isn’t the future.

BLOOMBERG

#7 1914 All Over Again? by Susanne Spröer

There are parallels between 1914 and 2014, but the differences are far more important.

DEUTSCHE WELLE

#8 Changes in the Pacific by Victor Davis Hanson

Is China copying old imperial Japan?

NATIONAL REVIEW

#9 Facing 2014 with Trepidation by Adam Gopnik

The last time '13 turned into '14, it didn't work out too well.

THE NEW YORKER

#10 Blame Football, Not Title IX by Jonathan Zimmerman

Colleges are cutting other sports -- and wrongly blaming the 1972 measure that outlawed sex discrimination in educational institutions receiving federal financial aid.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

#2 Five Myths About the Future of Obamacare by Eric M. Patashnik and Julian E. Zelizer

There are a lot of myths and half-truths about "policy entrenchment."

WASHINGTON POST

#3 The Great War’s Ominous Echoes by Margaret MacMillan

Could it happen again?

NEW YORK TIMES

#4 Pope Francis and the End of the Religious Right? by Steven Conn

The pope is saying it is time for a new kind of political conversation.

HUFFINGTON POST

#5 Jesus, Santa, and Now "Sound of Music's" Mother Abbess? by Shannen Dee Williams

The controversy over NBC's live remake of "The Sound of Music," starring black actress Audra McDonald as the Mother Abbess.

RELIGION DISPATCHES

#6 The More Things Change... by Jim Sleeper

A blast from the past, as a New York Times letter to the editor from 1970 on surveillance resonates remarkably well today.

HISTORY NEWS NETWORK

#7 Who Ain't a Slave? by Greg Grandin

Historical fact and the fiction of 'Benito Cereno.'

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

#8 Spinning Desert Storm: TV Coverage of a Pentagon Production by William J. Astore

The view from 1991.

CONTRARY PERSPECTIVE

#9 Saving Reagan's Legacy by Scot Faulkner and Jonathan Riehl

On the misuse of Reagan nostalgia.

THE HILL

#10 On the 76th Anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre by Stephen D. Smith

Sirens sound around this Chinese city as the last few eyewitnesses of a massacre gather.

HUFFINGTON POST

#2 Beware an Unchecked President by Jacob S. Hacker and Oona A. Hathaway

The solution to a dysfunctional Congress is not for Obama to govern the country all by himself.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

#3 Nelson Mandela, Communist by Bill Keller

Yes, the fact that Mandela was a member of the South African Communist Party matters, but not in the way you think.

NEW YORK TIMES

#4 Mandela, RIP by Conrad Black

The world has lost a great man.

NATIONAL REVIEW

#5 Why Machiavelli Still Matters by John Scott and Robert Zaretsky

We still believe a leader should be virtuous: generous and merciful, honest and faithful. Machiavelli knew better.

NEW YORK TIMES

#6 Gay Sex Bans: One of the British Empire's Most Enduring Legacies by Gwynn Guilford

India's supreme court reinstated a British ban on same-sex relationships dating to 1861.

THE ATLANTIC

#7 Insisting Jesus Was White Is Bad History and Bad Theology by Jonathan Merritt

In trying to police his depiction, Megyn Kelly is wrong on both the facts and the essential universality of the Christian message.

THE ATLANTIC

#8 Why the Tea Party’s Hold Persists by Theda Skocpol

Pundits keep predicting the Tea Party's demise, but it never sticks. Here's why.

DEMOCRACY: A JOURNAL OF IDEAS

#9 Why Doesn't War Appear in Modern American Fiction? by Beverly Gologorsky

It's all about social class.

TOMDISPATCH

#10 Is New China the Old Germany? by by Patrick Stephenson

Could we be edging to a Great War in Asia?

HUFFINGTON POSt

#2 How Mandela Changed African Politics by Charles D. Ellison

His style of leadership, often overlooked, was a game-changer for the continent and black rule.

THE ROOT

#3 Don’t Sanitize Nelson Mandela: He’s Honored Now, But Was Hated Then by Peter Beinart

The ANC was a Soviet-backed, communist-influenced organization... and it still lead a movement for freedom.

THE DAILY BEAST

#4 Nelson Mandela Was Undeniably Great But He Doesn’t Need a Halo by Michael Moynihan

For a man imprisoned for his political beliefs, he had a weakness for those who did the very same thing to their ideological opponents.

THE DAILY BEAST

#5 The Character of Nelson Mandela by Max Boot

Mandela belongs to the same pantheon of insurgents as George Washington, Michael Collins, and David Ben-Gurion.

COMMENTARY MAGAZINE

#6 The Surprising Republican Civil War That Erupted Over Nelson Mandela and Apartheid by Sagar Jethani

Ronald Reagan vetoed efforts to pass sanctions against apartheid South Africa.

POLICYMIC

#7 Fight the Right-Washing of Nelson Mandela’s Legacy by Joan Walsh

Many conservatives supported the apartheid regime to the bitter end.

SALON

#8 We Cold Warriors Were Wrong About Mandela by Deroy Murdock

We thought Nelson Mandela was just another Fidel Castro or a Pol Pot, but he was actually one of the century's great moral leaders.

NATIONAL REVIEW

#9 The Contradictions of Mandela by Zakes Mda

He was avuncular, but disciplined, a disciple of Marx and Lenin but deeply traditionalist. He was above all a human being.

NEW YORK TIMES

#10 Nelson Mandela was a Secular Saint for the Whole World by Timothy Stanley

Mandela was a rare example of a lion who lay down with the lambs.

THE TELEGRAPH

#2 Here's Something Congress Could Actually Do by Julian Zelizer

Loophole-closing tax reform would be productive policy -- but would it be good politics?

CNN

#3 Netanyahu's Petulance: A Self-inflicted Wound? by Stanley Kutler

The real issue for Netanyahu is his determination to maintain Israel's monopoly as the region's only nuclear power.

HUFFINGTON POST

#4 Iran: Not That Bad a Start by Conrad Black

Better than Obama’s miscues in Libya and Syria.

NATIONAL REVIEW

#5 Why So Many Parents Hate Common Core by Diane Ravitch

Officials need to stop pressing for implementation.

CNN

#6 Harry Reid's House Doppelganger by Stephen Mihm

Claims that his action is unprecedented miss the mark.

BLOOMBERG

#7 Sex Drive Blurs Line Surrounding Assault by Jonathan Zimmerman

On today’s college campuses, rape is harder to define.

USA TODAY

#8 Anxiety in the House of Saud by Rajan Menon

For the Saudis, money can't buy everything.

HUFFINGTON POST

#9 A First Season Recap of China's Still-New Leader by Jeffrey Wasserstrom

A year after the arrival of China's new president on the world stage, it's time to ask if he's achieving his twin goals of being the new Deng Xiaoping and not the new Mikhail Gorbachev.

PACIFIC STANDARD

#10 What Would JFK Have Done About Iran? by Graham Allison

JFK would have approved of Obama's negotiation.

CNN

#2 Is There More to the JFK Assassination? by Larry J. Sabato

Just consider a few of the commission's flaws.

CNN

#3 Lincoln’s Sound Bite: Have Faith in Democracy by Allen C. Guelzo

The surprisingly short story of the Gettysburg Address is that it was a surprisingly short speech.

NEW YORK TIMES

#4 In Defense of Global History by Marc-William Palen

David Bell was too harsh on Emily Rosenberg's "A World Connecting: 1870-1945."

IMPERIAL & GLOBAL FORUM

#5 The Single Best JFK Assassination Conspiracy Theory by Jon Wiener

Joe Kennedy did it. Because, why not, right?

:LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS

#6 The City With a Death Wish in Its Eye by James McAuley

Dallas's role in Kennedy's murder.

NEW YORK TIMES

#7 Still Blaming Conservatives for Lee Harvey Oswald by Daniel Pipes

Lee Harvey Oswald was a Marxist, so why does Dallas's conservative culture still get blamed for JFK's assassination?

NATIONAL REVIEW

#8 Was JFK Really a Conservative? by Ronald Radosh

Where was John F. Kennedy on the ideological spectrum?

THE WEEKLY STANDARD

#9 Banishing Congo's Ghosts by Howard W. French

How to keep the peace in one of the world's most war-torn countries.

NEW YORK TIMES

#10 A Lesson From Cuba on Race by Alejandro de la Fuente

The Cuban answer to racial injustice actually worked.

NEW YORK TIMES

#2 The U.S. Army Discovers Africa by Andrew J. Bacevich

Africa has many needs. Whether it needs the United States bringing to bear a million American soldiers is doubtful.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

#3 Who’s Still Afraid of Interracial Marriage? by Jelani Cobb

Sex between white men and black women has been a feature of this country literally since its inception.

THE NEW YORKER

#4 The Five Best Kennedy Assassination Books by Jon Wiener

Here are five choices -- some fiction, some non -- for readers this November.

THE NATION

#5 White America and the Burden of Slavery by Vincent Intondi

It is long overdue that whites, collectively, acknowledge, apologize, and condemn slavery.

HUFFINGTON POST

#6 The Democrats' Worst Nightmare by Robert W. Merry

Barack Obama's second term is on the road to failure.

THE NATIONAL INTEREST

#7 Lee Harvey Oswald Was My Friend by Paul Gregory

From nearly the moment I met Lee Harvey Oswald, it seemed that he felt the world had sized him up wrong.

NEW YORK TIMES

#8 Obama’s Fallout for the Left by Victor Davis Hanson

He will not be harmed by his “misspeaking,” but his fellow liberals will.

NATIONAL REVIEW

#9 Bill de Blasio Is Not Afraid of Red Scare Ghosts by Landon R.Y. Storrs

The Democratic candidate for New York mayor confronts the dark legacy of a federal employee loyalty program.

THE NATION

#10 Ending a Feud Between Allies by Victor Cha and Karl Friedhoff

Japan and South Korea's tensions threaten East Asian security.

NEW YORK TIMES

#2 Four Ways to Make the Most of a De Blasio Mayoralty by Nick Juravich

Bill de Blaiso *could* be a champion for the working class.

DISSENT MAGAZINE

#3 The Passion of Solomon Northrup by Eric Herschthal

If the film is “true” to anything in the book, it should be true to Northup’s voice, not his facts; that voice is what makes “12 Years a Slave” so enduring.

NEW YORK TIMES

#4 Better to be Wrong than Right? by Walter Laqueur

For some intellectuals, it all depends.

MOSAIC MAGAZINE

#5 Is The Tea Party Really All About Alger Hiss? by Walter Russell Mead

Hiss is the quintessential liberal establishment elite (and closet communist).

THE AMERICAN INTEREST

#6 The Most Successful Tax Reform in History by Bruce Bartlett

Japan's post-World War II tax reform ensured a booming economy for decades.

TAX ANALYSIS

#7 The Long Shadow of William Mulholland by William Kahrl

The LA Aqueduct continues to cast a long shadow.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

#8 JFK Assassination: CIA and New York Times are Still Lying to Us by David Talbot

Fifty years later, a complicit media still covers up for the security state. We need to reclaim our history.

SALON

#9 Don't Underestimate Risks of Government Spying by Julian Zelizer

The notion that citizens should just trust the government to do the right thing on national security poses too many dangers.

CNN

#10 Sorry, America, You’re Wrong, the Jews Did Not Kill Jesus by Candida Moss

A new poll finds that 26 percent of Americans believe the Jews killed Jesus. They’re historically ignorant, but they do read their Bible—that is who the New Testament blames, after all.

THE DAILY BEAST

#2 My Lai, Sexual Assault and the Black Blouse Girl by Valerie Wieskamp

Forty-five years later, one of America’s most iconic photos hides truth in plain sight.

BAG NOTE NEWS

#3 How Adults Stole Halloween from American Children by Jonathan Zimmerman

The sexy-costume trend reveals how far we have strayed from the truly naughty roots of Halloween.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

#4 A Kind Word for Ted Cruz: America Was Built on Extremism by Michael Kazin

How unpopular opinions move history forward.

THE NEW REPUBLIC

#5 Mexico's Theology of Oil by Enrique Krauze

Nationalization of oil in Mexico is an existential question.

NEW YORK TIMES

#6 Greek Democracy and Its Discontents by Elizabeth H. Prodromou and Alexandros K. Kyrou

Crackdown or breakdown on the streets of Athens?

HUFFINGTON POST

#7 Dignity’s Due by Samuel Moyn

Why are philosophers invoking the notion of human dignity to revitalize theories of political ethics?

THE NATION

#8 How Con Artists Spammed in a Time Before Email by Benjamin Breen

Think the Nigerian prince email scam is new? Think again.

THE ATLANTIC

#9 You Don’t Need a Weatherman by Jon Wiener

Jon Wiener on Bill Ayers' new autobiography, "Public Enemy: Confessions of an American Dissident."

LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS

#10 Chinese Communism and the 70-Year Itch by Larry Diamond

Authoritarian regimes tend not to last past the seventy-year mark.

THE ATLANTIC

#2 Who Earns More: Professor or Fry Cook? by Alberto A. Martínez

The professor beats out the fry cook -- barely.

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

#3 U.S. Government Secrecy Making Historical Research Difficult by James McGrath Morris

By redacting all documents, no matter how benign, the government is throwing its past down the memory hole.

AL JAZEERA AMERICA

#4 Chris Christie Ahead of the GOP Curve on Same-Sex Marriage by Julian Zelizer

Even among Republicans, the progress on same-sex marriage has been rapid.

CNN

#5 Recalibrating the Poverty Line by John E. Schwarz

For its 50th anniversary, the poverty line calculation should be rejiggered to reflect reality.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

#6 How to Claim a Continent by Adam Clulow

Sovereignty claims as used by Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama and a host of lesser known explorers, adventurers and settlers.

THE ATLANTIC

#7 The Founding Fathers Vacillated on Government Snooping, Too by Ritika Singh and Benjamin Wittes

James Madison went back and forth over how security should inflect the powers we invest in government.

THE NEW REPUBLIC

#8 Remembering The Invasion of Grenada 30 Years On by Michael Ledeen

Thirty years ago, the U.S. launched Operation Urgent Fury to liberate Grenada from its Marxist-Leninist regime.

THE DAILY BEAST

#9 Where Have All the Geniuses Gone? by Darrin M. McMahon

The term has become generic, and all but banished from academe.

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

#10 The Killing of Trayvon Martin in Historical Perspective by Hasan Kwame Jeffries

Why did African Americans and white Americans view the Trayvon Martin killing so differently?

OSU ORIGINS

#2 Liberals, Stop Whining and Do Something by Julian Zelizer

If liberals really want change, they need to make it happen at the grassroots level.

CNN

#3 Lessons From the Great Default Crisis of 1975 by Kim Phillips-Fein

Thirty-eight years ago to this day, New York City almost went bankrupt.

WALL STREET JOURNAL

#4 Maxed Out by Ruth Rosen

Feminists have always known we can't "have it all."

TRUTHDIG

#5 Congress Has Been This Dysfunctional Before by David Stebenne

And the results weren't pretty.

HISTORY NEWS NETWORK

#6 Natural Disaster Politics: East & West, Past & Present by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom

There's nothing distinctly modern about catastrophes bringing political issues to a boil.

HUFFINGTON POST

#7 Curiosity Set Sail with Columbus by Joyce Appleby

Columbus's discoveries pried loose European curiosity from the vise put in place by the medieval church.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

#8 Tea Party Wants to Take America Back to the Eighteenth Century by Joseph J. Ellis

Their ultimate destination is the 1780s and our dysfunctional government under the Articles of Confederation.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

#9 When Debt-Ceiling Politics Was Bipartisan by Stephen Mihm

President Barack Obama is hardly the first president forced to play debt-ceiling politics.

BLOOMBERG

#10 Their Genocide, Our History, Our Present by Warren Rosenblum

The T-4 program is still worthy of study.

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

#2 Stalin: The Tyrant as Editor by Holly Case

Stalin wasn't just a ruthless dictator -- he was a damn effective editor.

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

#3 The Shutdown Is a Sideshow. Debt Is the Threat by Niall Ferguson

An entitlement-driven disaster looms for America, yet Washington persists with its game of Russian roulette.

WALL STREET JOURNAL

#4 Defaming the Cold Warriors by Conrad Black

Returning to Diana West's book, American Betrayal.

NATIONAL REVIEW

#5 Tea Party Tactics Lead Straight Back to Secession by Stephen Mihm

Forget the Confederacy -- look the nullification crisis for a way out of this mess.

BLOOMBERG

#6 The Moderates Who Lighted the Gingrich Fuse by Geoffrey Kabaservice

How GOP moderates enabled the Tea Party takeover.

NEW YORK TIMES

#7 Republicans on the Wrong Side of History by Timothy Egan

The die is cast. They wrecked the car, dug their own grave; no matter what you call it, history’s verdict came early.

NEW YORK TIMES

#8 Five Things Bill O’Reilly Flubs in "Killing Jesus" by Candida Moss

The Holy Spirit may have inspired "Killing Jesus," but he didn’t fact-check it.

CNN

#9 Erdogan Stokes the Sectarian Fires by Halil M. Karaveli

Turkey was supposed to be the stable Middle East partner of the West. No more.

NEW YORK TIMES

#10 Nazis, Lynching and Obamacare by Frank Bruni

How absolutely bonkers -- yet how unsurprising -- our political analogies have come to this.

NEW YORK TIMES

#2 The Shutdown Standoff Is One of the Worst Crises in American History by John B. Judis

Welcome to Weimar America.

THE NEW REPUBLIC

#3 Why The Right Fights by Ross Douthat

Movement conservatives actually want smaller government.

NEW YORK TIMES

#4 The Real Story of the Shutdown: 50 Years of GOP Race-Baiting by Joan Walsh

Nixon's Southern strategy reaps its bitter fruit.

SALON

#5 Shutdown Fulfills GOP’s Confederate Fantasies by Steven Rosenfeld

It's a way of acting out a deeply held secessionist dream.

ALTERNET

#6 Neville Chamberlain Was Right by Nick Baumann

Chamberlain did what we would expect any sane leader to do at Munich.

SLATE

#7 Neville Chamberlain Was Wrong by Conrad Black

Chamberlain acted weakly ... and the world paid the price.

NATIONAL REVIEW

#8 The Charter School Mistake by Diane Ravitch

Charter schools are a very bad idea, but billionaires love 'em.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

#9 Ukraine’s Bumpy Road to Europe by Niall Ferguson and Pierpaolo Barbieri

Looking forward eagerly to Ukraine’s first step toward E.U. membership.

NEW YORK TIMES

#10 The Right Gets Its ’60s by Bill Keller

Obamacare is their Vietnam.

NEW YORK TIMES

#2 Reagan's Revolution Devolves Into a Food-Stamp Skirmish by Stephen Mihm

We've been in this food stamp battle before.

BLOOMBERG

#3 A Century of American Dreams and Nightmares of China by Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Fu Manchu is only the tip of the iceberg.

THE CHINA STORY

#4 The Unsung Hero Who Coined the Term "Genocide" by Michael Ignatieff

If the history of the western moral imagination is the story of an enduring and unending revolt against human cruelty, there are few more consequential figures than Raphael Lemkin.

THE NEW REPUBLIC

#5 Surveillance and the FISA Court by Bruce Ackerman

Proposed reforms, such as making public all opinions on important legal issues and creating a civil liberties advocate, would help.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

#6 Searching for Madame Nhu by Katie Baker

Lyndon Johnson flirted with her. JFK hated her. Historians blamed her for South Vietnam's downfall.

THE DAILY BEAST

#7 How Alcohol Conquered Russia by Stan Fedun

A history of the country’s struggle with alcoholism, and why the government has done so little about it.

THE ATLANTIC

#8 Stand Up to the Biggest Bully in the Room: Mental Illness by Jonathan Zimmerman

Mental illness is the far more likely culprit than bullying in suicides and school shootings.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

#9 Machiavelli: Still Shocking after Five Centuries by Stewart M. Patrick

Machiavelli underlined the distinction between politics and morality.

THE NATIONAL INTEREST

#10 Is Obama Like Ike? by Slava Gerovitch

If only.

COMMENTARY MAGAZINE

#2 Larry Summers's Not-So-Illustrious Predecessor by Stephen Mihm

Woodrow Wilson also withdrew his first choice for the Fed in 1914.

BLOOMBERG

#3 The Discovery of the First Black Female Novelist by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The discovery of the author's real identity will forever change the history of African-American literature.

THE ROOT

#4 Is Peter Beinart Right About a ‘New New Left’? by Rick Perlstein

Maybe... maybe not.

THE NATION

#5 The Decline of College by Victor Davis Hanson

The four-year campus experience is becoming a thing of the past.

NATIONAL REVIEW

#6 A.J.P. Taylor Is History by R.J. Stove

Is the popular historian worth another look?

THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE

#7 The Father of the 14th Amendment by Gerard N. Magliocca

In September 1863, John Bingham was at the lowest point of his career. But soon he would become the father of the Fourteenth Amendment.

NEW YORK TIMES

#8 A Historian on a Film Set by Gyan Prakash

A Princeton historian on location with "Bombay Velvet."

NEW YORK TIMES

#9 How a College Student Changed Congressional Pay by Jesse Rifkin

Gregory Watson's college essay received a C — and changed America.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

#10 The Man Who Invented Modern Probability by Slava Gerovitch

Chance encounters in the life of Andrei Kolmogorov.

NAUTILUS