Families walking beside the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Escapist Humor in East and West Berlin

Humor in East and West Berlin before the wall came down.
Grassy area in front of a small mountain range

Making Claims

How claims records and other documents serve as historical sources.
Black and white illustration of the Battle of Orleans

The Influence of Wars on American Politics

What does war do to domestic American politics?
An open pack of graham crackers

A Hell of a Cracker

The unusual origin of the graham cracker
Confederate officer, John Robery Baylor from the Civil War time period

A Complicated Man: John Baylor’s Letters to His Family

How could John Baylor have done such terrible thing and simultaneously be so effusively affectionate in his letters home?
Close-up of a voting machine lever

The Early American Origins of Political Terms

What does stump speech and pork barrel mean? A short lexicon of American political terms.
Slate statute of Alan Turing at Bletchley Park.

Remembering and Representing Alan Turing

A 1955 obituary of Turing from the Royal Society is fascinating for what it leaves out of the first draft of history.


The Urban Lawyer

Highlights from the American Bar Association's publication, The Urban Lawyer
MacArthus Fellow Sarah Deer standing in front of the sign for William Mitchell College of Law

Interview with MacArthur Fellow Sarah Deer: Native Women and the Law

MacArthur Fellow Sarah Deer discusses her legal work in preventing sexual violence among the Native American population.
The Organ Mountains in New Mexico

Reading the Landscape

For the past two months, I have been on a researching road trip through the West and Southwest—Colorado, ...