Historians change their views of presidents over time, often because of the country’s changing views on race and moral leadership.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on Thomas Jefferson
Displaying 1 - 20 of 52 articles
Americans are not the first to fret over the potential harm that parties can inflict. But parties can also promote the common interest.
Many people define ‘bias’ as ‘anything that doesn’t agree with me.’ But are the news media really biased?
The celebration of generous portions, meat and fat as masculine and patriotic would have been alien to Washington and Jefferson, who advocated vegetables and moderation as American ideals.
Historians of American religious history explain why the Supreme Court’s recent religious liberty rulings are an example of America’s long struggle to define religious freedom.
The vice president has said he looks forward to meeting the framers of the Constitution in heaven. That is not the mindset of someone with short-term vision.
Coverage of the House Jan. 6 hearings focuses on what went wrong that led up to Trump supporters’ laying siege to the US Capitol. A government scholar looks at what went right, both then and now.
Once owned by James Madison, the Montpelier plantation remains a model for presenting a full depiction of the life of the former president as well as the lives of those he enslaved.
Like today, passions were strong and political discourse was inflamed in late 18th-century America. Angry mobs torched buildings. Virginians drank a toast to George Washington’s speedy death.
The Founding Fathers were unrelenting in their commitment to the idea that circumstances can arise that require public officials to take actions abridging individual freedoms.
Few people embody the contradictions of U.S. history like the author of the Star Spangled Banner, someone who denounced slavery as a moral wrong but rejected racial equality.
Fewer than half of Americans report knowing someone who is Muslim. Here we explain Islam, its diversity and its long history in the United States.
Democracies degenerate because of cunning leaders. Democracies also crumble because of the people themselves – and the US founders believed education would be crucial to maintaining democracy.
A scholar of early US history celebrates the country’s birthday with six under-appreciated ideas about the founding document.
Only one president has done so – Franklin Delano Roosevelt – but others considered it, and even tried.
A president’s persona is always a public act. In that way, Trump’s shtick – vulgar man of the people – was not exceptional. And every president has had to invent his version of the role.
As Donald Trump prepares to address the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, here’s how other former presidents have occupied their time after leaving the White House.
‘Mind your manners’ isn’t just something your mother told you. Manners – and civility – are an essential component of how things get done in government, and the Founding Fathers knew it.
The domed neoclassical Capitol building was inspired by European cathedrals and the Roman Pantheon – shrines to imperial power, not rule by and for the people.
History shows that attorneys general who are picked by – and serve at the pleasure of – the president are not as independent as they may be expected to be.
Top contributors
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Professor of American History, Università di Torino
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Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies, The University of Texas at Austin
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Professor of Management and Wine Business, Sonoma State University
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Assistant Professor of Intellectual Heritage, Temple University
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Professor of History, McGill University
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Assistant Professor of Political Science, Clarkson University
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Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Indiana University
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Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University
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Professor of Journalism, Columbia University
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Professor of American Religious History, Vanderbilt University
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Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Nottingham Trent University
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Professor of Law, Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar, Rutgers University
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Assistant Professor of Communication Studies and Faculty Associate at the Institute of Social Research, University of Michigan
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Professor of History, American University School of International Service
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Associate Professor of English, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
