The cover of A Passage to India on top of a 1920s map of India

The Sociopolitical Impact of A Passage to India

E. M. Forster’s novel captured not only the tensions between colonizers and colonized but also the fraught internal politics that shaped India’s fight for independence.
A photograph of a red pill in someone's left palm and a blue pill in his right palm

An Age of Fantasy Politics

Tropes from science fiction and fantasy have become fodder for political rhetoric and action on all sides in the twenty-first century.
An intricate tangle of the American flag.

Nationalism Before It Was in the News

Nationalist rhetoric has surged to the center of US politics, but what do Americans actually mean when they say “nationalism” in the twenty-first century?
A postcard depicting the first hoeing of cotton

Hoe History: Complex and Knotted

The plantation hoe, a simple, ubiquitous, and historically ignored farming tool, was specific to the Atlantic colonial project, shows historian Chris Evans.
Maize, tomato and apple of paradise

“Simple, Wholesome Food” for a New American Nation

In the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, Americans faced understandable anxiety about what their society would look like—and what they should eat.
George Washington portrait

A Presidents’ Day Roundup

Who—or what—do Americans celebrate on the third Monday of February?
A couple gazes over the Nile River on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt.

Valentine’s Day in Egypt

In recent decades, celebrations of Valentine’s Day have become common in Egypt. But, as anthropologist Aymon Kreil found, opinions on the holiday are mixed.
Vintage American History print of President George Washington and President Abraham Lincoln shaking hands

Praising Washington in Lincoln’s Day

At the time of the Civil War, many Americans revered the nation’s Founding Fathers, and both supporters and opponents of slavery recruited them to their sides.
Meeting of 'Big Five' (US, UK, France, China and the USSR), part of the delegates of fifty nations agreeing upon the Charter of the United Nations and the Statute of the New International Court of Justice, San Francisco, California, May 29, 1945

Origins of the UN: The US and USSR

The genesis of the United Nations came from the nations united as Allies against the Axis powers, but who really pushed the institution into being?
Cast of left hind foot of Deinonychus antirrhopus

The Origins of the “Dinosaur Renaissance”

John Ostrom’s ideas were part of the so-called Dinosaur Renaissance, a paradigm shift that posited dinosaurs as the warm-blooded ancestors of birds.