History
Stewart Brand on Fixing Stuff, Modern Environmentalism, and the Nuclear Future
"There's always a place in not just the market, but a range of situations and mindsets, for things that are cheap, fast, and just barely in control," the Whole Earth Catalog creator tells Reason.
The Anarchists Who Thought Mao Was on Their Side
As the Cultural Revolution turns 60, here's a look back at some of the fantasies that people projected onto it—and at one moment of possible prescience.
How Much Deference Does SCOTUS Owe to Congress?
Should it take more than a 5–4 vote for the Supreme Court to strike down a federal law?
Clarence Thomas Sets a New SCOTUS Record
Plus: A "supremely cringe" viral tweet about the Supreme Court
Heroes of 1776 Shows That Remembering the Past Is Key to Progress
Neil Gorsuch's new book reminds us that to accelerate progress, we must first acknowledge the progress that has already occurred.
Ted Turner, Entrepreneur of His Age
The creative destruction triggered by Ted Turner's wild gambits left the tyranny of licensed, bureaucratic TV in rubble.
Right-Wing Influencers Don't Understand What Makes America Great
The Dissident Right is furious with Neil Gorsuch for saying America is a creedal nation. That just goes to show how out of touch its obsessions are.
New Jersey's Iconic Diners Are Dying. This Is the Wrong Way To Save Them.
Democratic state lawmakers want to give tax carveouts to certain restaurants. The real problem is New Jersey's tax code itself.
Review: The Boring History for Sleep Podcast Mostly Delivers on Its Promise
If this podcast has a flaw, it's that occasionally the episodes are slightly too interesting.
Florida Wins the Curriculum Wars
Plus: French ship attacked, pro se on the rise, Mamdani's grocery store, and more...
How the Slaveholding Founders Really Felt About Slavery
Angst, guilt, and more self-awareness than you might expect
A Pointless War: How Iran Hawks Finally Got Their Way
President Donald Trump and his predecessors spent decades putting the U.S. on a path toward war against Iran.
Donald Trump's Deeply Disappointing Would-Be Assassin
Cole Tomas Allen's actions just don't make sense, even in his own words, or in a time of political polarization.
Long Before the Canal, Global Trade Built Panama City
The narrow geography of the 50-mile Central American isthmus made it an obvious choice for trade routes between the Atlantic and Pacific.
Chernobyl Wasn't a Nuclear Disaster—It Was a Communist Disaster
Forty years after the Chernobyl meltdown, too many people are still drawing the wrong conclusions.
Kodak Invented This Film for World War II Spy Planes. Then It Became Art.
Aerochrome photography is a beautiful example of a warlike technology being turned toward peaceful ends.
America's First Drafts
Before it was history, the Declaration of Independence was news. Not everyone got the story right.
Woodrow Wilson's War at Home
Silencing "Fighting Bob" details how the government targeted anti-war critics like Sen. Robert La Follette.
The Gun Debate Hasn't Changed in 500 Years
Guns disrupted the established order—and sparked modern-sounding debates over whether they could be effectively regulated.
When the U.S. Censored a Movie About the American Revolution and Imprisoned Its Producer
Remembering the infuriating case of United States v. “The Spirit of ’76.”
When SCOTUS Did Lasting Damage to the Bill of Rights
Plus: The Alito retirement rumors keep swirling.
Review: A Thorough Account of Socialism's History
On Origin Story, podcasters Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt cover everything from Karl Marx to the British Labour Party.
What Happens If There's a Murder in Antarctica?
No single government controls the South Pole, so how do they deal with crime?
Roscoe Conkling, the Political Boss Who Twice Declined a Supreme Court Appointment
The Republican stalwart thought he could wield more power from the Senate than he ever could from the Supreme Court.
Yes, the First Amendment Protects Free Speech for Noncitizens
"Freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country," according to a 1945 Supreme Court ruling.
Remembering Brian Doherty, Chronicler of and Participant in Wild and Wonderful Subcultures
The Radicals for Capitalism and This Is Burning Man author was more than an observer of the movements he wrote about.
Brian Doherty, Historian of the Libertarian Movement, Dead at 57
The longtime Reason senior editor accidentally fell to his death in a park along the San Francisco Bay.
The Enduring Fight Over 'Fighting Words'
More than eight decades ago, the Supreme Court invented a vague First Amendment exception that would-be censors continue to invoke.
Police Investigate German Historian for Hitler-Putin Meme
Germany’s law against Nazi symbolism "is being misused to silence people with dissenting views," Rainer Zitelmann tells Reason.
Review: A Period Drama About the Price of Progress in the American West
Train Dreams follows a logger in the Pacific Northwest during the age of westward expansion.
NYC Transit Just Got Rid of MetroCards for Fares. The Successor Could Put Your Privacy at Risk.
Unlike the MetroCard, the OMNY system requires train and bus riders in New York City to give their name and phone number to the government.
250 Years Later, The Wealth of Nations Still Has Lessons To Offer the Political Class
Governments have yet to accept that free societies are also prosperous societies.
By Closing Moscow's Gulag History Museum, Putin Is Erasing Inconvenient Soviet History
As George Orwell warned, "Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past."
100 Years of Murray Rothbard
Remembering America's most radical and definitive modern libertarian intellectual.
The Secret Phone Recordings of Henry Kissinger, a 'Habitual Liar'
A new collection of transcripts underscores the vast scope of Kissinger's systematic deception.
What the ICE Crackdown and China's One-Child Policy Have in Common
Population control is technocratic hubris at its most intimate and brutal.
How Communists Conquered China
The evidence tells a different story than you’ll find in the party's triumphant propaganda.
D.C.'s Statue of a Confederate General Isn't What Its Critics Think It Is
Brigadier General Albert Pike is honored for his civic and philanthropic legacy, not his role in the Civil War.
When Jesse Jackson Met Ronald Reagan
An encounter on the campaign trail. Was it a dead end, or a wasted opportunity?
Wuthering Heights Is a Kinky, Revisionist Fever Dream
A problematic hyperpop romance that collides with the manosphere
Review: The Anarchist Writings of Robert Anton Wilson
"I'm the kind of anarchist whose chief objection to the state is that it kills so many people," Wilson said in a 1976 interview
Bad Bunny and the SCOTUS Precedent That Denies Constitutional Rights to Puerto Ricans
Plus: Is this the Supreme Court’s next big immigration case?
American Presidents Shouldn't Endorse Foreign Political Candidates
Trump's endorsements of Viktor Orbán and Sanae Takaichi, like Clinton's support for Boris Yeltsin or Obama's opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu, do not make America great.
How the FCC Became the Speech Police
The constitutionally anomalous status of broadcasting invites government meddling.
Trump's Push To Restore 'Truth and Sanity in American History' Tests Nonpartisan Institutions
Politically-motivated firings and increased executive branch scrutiny set “a dangerous precedent,” warns a former archivist of the United States.
