Critic Greil Marcus sees Bob Dylan as constantly rewriting the national songbook. And in his weird, funny new book, Dylan does just that.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on US history
Displaying 1 - 20 of 388 articles
At a time when politicians across the country are debating how slavery in the US is taught, high school students are participating in mock slave auctions that are having severe consequences
In a territory landowners wanted to become a state, white immigrants were less threatening to American nativists on the mainland.
Mike Davis’s radical urban history of LA was a trailblazing book that remains startlingly relevant to those of us who live in other supersizing cities in the early 21st century.
Ronald Reagan may have been known as ‘The Great Communicator,’ but rap artists don’t view his legacy through such rose-colored glasses. A professor of Black studies and history takes a closer look.
Journals, museum collections and other historical sources can provide valuable data for modern ecological studies. But just because a source is old doesn’t make it useful.
The US and the Soviet Union never engaged in direct combat, but their influences were felt worldwide, including in armed conflicts involving other nations.
Many Republicans have wrestled with whether to embrace Donald Trump and his brash political style. Latter-day Saints are an especially telling example.
Published in 1962, ‘Silent Spring’ called attention to collateral damage from widespread use of synthetic pesticides. Many problems the book anticipated persist today in new forms.
Many Americans know a simple version of Holocaust history, in which their country played the savior. The reality isn’t so comfortable, a historian writes.
The women’s rights movement in the 1800s did not openly support legalizing abortion or birth control. But the reasons why are complex.
The Chautauqua movement symbolized progressive reformers’ hopes that public learning could create a healthy democracy.
Distrust of government blended with strains of Christian fundamentalism can produce a violent form of Christian nationalism, a scholar explains.
A historian of the residential schools explains how religion played a key role in assimilationist systems for Indigenous children in Canada and the United States.
The Utah holiday is a reflection of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ slowly changing identity, a historian of Mormonism and migration writes.
A historian explains why the pre-Roe anti-abortion movement was filled with liberal Democrats who opposed the Vietnam War and supported the expansion of the welfare state.
US President Calvin Coolidge hasn’t gone down in history for his triumphs or failures as president during the 1920s – but his dry sense of humor carries on.
Reagan was the first US president to address the UK parliament. What he said still carries weight for Anglo-American relations decades on.
One of the last relics of ‘lost cause’ ideology is nearing its end as a federal panel has recommended renaming US military bases now honoring Confederate generals.
American institutions are seemingly powerless to enact gun reform because so many Americans believe – consciously or not – that any sacrifice is worth it to live in the best country in the world.
Top contributors
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Associate Professor of History, Penn State
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Distinguished Professor of History and Environmental Studies, Penn State
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Professor of Journalism, IUPUI
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Emeritus Professor of Life Sciences, Arizona State University
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Teaching Fellow, Queen Mary University of London
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Chester D. Tripp Professor of History, Yale University
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Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
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Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University
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Scott L. Montgomery is a Friend of The Conversation.
Lecturer, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington
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PhD Candidate in History, University of Leeds
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Adjunct Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University
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Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor of History, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts
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Ruth Coulter Heede Professor of Art History, Case Western Reserve University
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James Walker is a Friend of The Conversation.
Emeritus Professor of Communication, Saint Xavier University
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William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College
