Rio de Janerio

A History of Brazil

The largest country in South America is home to a wide variety of cultures, fascinating history, and some of the most pristine wilderness found anywhere in the world.
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Spike Lee, Danny Aiello
Credit: Universal Pictures/Courtesy Neal Peters Collection

Forming a Critical Sense of Race with Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing”

Interpretations of the film may differ by race, media scholar Kelli Marshall finds.
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?
Excerpt of letter from Alexander Murdock detailing the geography of the Battle of Gettysburg

Finding Your Place in Letters

For scholars of American history, letter-writing makes historical research possible.
A map of Kansas from 1862 showing boundary lines as recorded by O.B. Gunn and D.T. Mitchell.

Finding Your Place by Looking at Maps

American maps in the early 19th century.
Card catalogue drawers

Adventures in Historical Research

Megan Kate Nelson, a historian of Civil War and the American Southwest, is behind the (Un)Catalogued Column for JSTOR Daily.