Why Do People Embrace Hate? Sartre Has an Answer
A classic essay examines the hidden dynamics behind modern prejudice.
How 1980s Children’s Books Framed Vietnamese Refugees
Children’s books introduced Vietnamese refugees to US readers, often simplifying their histories and experiences.
The Intimate Memorials of a Ladies Literary Club
These remembrances reveal a century of women’s friendships in one Midwestern literary club.
Inside a Four-Million-Word Diary of 1860s New York
George Templeton Strong chronicles Civil War–era New York with unmatched immediacy, capturing daily life and upheaval.
Worried About Teens Today? So Were Adults in the 1920s
A century ago, new technology and mobility reshaped what it meant to be young, linking rural life more closely to the city.
The Immigrant Photographers Who Shaped a Nation’s Image
In early twentieth-century Indonesia, Chinese-run studios brought modernity into focus.
The Golden Age of the American Soapbox
Across the country, impromptu speakers drew crowds and arrests alike, turning public oratory into a defining feature of civic life.
Islands of the Imagination
A short history of islands as sites of political escape and reinvention, from the myth of Atlantis to modern seasteading.
Chinese Lion Dance Finds New Life in Newfoundland
A small Chinese Canadian community reshapes a performance tradition across generations, redefining how the art form is practiced and understood.
The Revolutionary Beginnings of the Republican Party
Popular resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law and “Slave Power” helped forge a new electoral force.