Chains of Credit: The Entrepreneurial Advantage of Slavery
As the financial history of Maryland shows, slavery represented extraordinarily liquid wealth and outsized political power.
The Rise of Police Torture in New Orleans
Even as crime rates dropped in the 1930s, the police of New Orleans stepped up their use of torture to obtain confessions from Black Americans accused of crimes.
The Fight for Native American Voting Rights
Despite the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924, Native American activists have had to repeatedly take their fight for voting rights to Congress.
Boven Digoel, the Prison Camp in the “Siberia of Indonesia”
The number of ethnic Chinese incarcerated in Boven Digoel in the 1920s was low, but the New Guinea colonial prison nonetheless shaped Sino-Malay literature.
In the Palm of Your Hand
Palm reading, also known as palmistry or chiromancy, has fascinated us as a practice and a party trick for centuries.
Inventing Silk Roads
The idea of a Silk Road, though it conjures up visions of exotic goods passing between Asia and Europe via ancient trade routes, is a thoroughly modern one.
The Mayaguez Incident: The Last Chapter of the Vietnam War
Reeling from defeat in Vietnam, the US invaded a Cambodian island to rescue a US freighter—just before its crew members, who were elsewhere, were released.
Memphis: The Roots of Rock in the Land of the Mississippians
Rising on the lands of an ancient agricultural system, Memphis has a long history of negotiating social conflict and change while singing the blues.
The Genocide Before the Shoah
For a century, Jews in Turkey have maintained a strategic silence when it comes to recognizing the Armenian genocide. Could that be changing?
Archimedes Rediscovered: Technology and Ancient History
Advanced imaging technologies help scholars reveal and share lost texts from the ancient world.