History
Some Thoughts on Ferguson, Newark, State Violence, Insurrections, and Democracy
Whither the Republic?
James Brady's Death Ruled a Homicide
As a result of his injuries from the failed Reagan assassination attempt
Copyright Absurdity: Reagan Biographer Gets Paraphrased, Demands $25 Million
This week in preposterous legal threats
5 Foreign Policy Lessons from World War I
What we can learn from the Great War on its centennial.
Friday A/V Club: Watch This Old Movie About Stranger Danger and Marvel at How Unsupervised Kids Used to Be
This film's fears can't conceal just how level-headed people were about allowing children a little autonomy.
The Secret History of the Telephone Network
The public utility model of telecommunications was not as inevitable as it seems today.
Friday A/V Club: Hollywood Explains These New-Fangled Computer Thingies
For the filmmakers of the '80s, computers were magic and hackers were wizards.
How 'Crazy Negroes' With Guns Helped Kill Jim Crow
Civil rights and armed self-defense in the South
The Financial Crisis of 1837
Trying to understand one of America's great economic downturns
Friday A/V Club: Philip Marlowe in the French Revolution
Anthony Mann's gloriously weird movie The Black Book
Libertarianism 3.0; Koch And A Smile
The visionary brothers' paradigm could frustrate the left and alter the right by fusing social tolerance with fiscal responsibility.
Friday A/V Club: Jerry Brown and Francis Ford Coppola's 'Transmission From Some Clandestine Place on Mars'
One of the strangest live political broadcasts of all time.
John Milius, Hollywood Maverick
The lost bridge between the New Hollywood of the '70s and the anti-Communist flicks of the Reagan era
How Not to Legalize a Drug
Yanking alcohol back out of the black market left America with a wicked Prohibition hangover.
Why Did Nicholas Kristof Believe Somaly Mam's Lies?
The roots and consequences of a deception.
'She Literally Walked the Streets of Downtown Manhattan Like a Gay Superhero'
Storme DeLarverie, RIP
Here's Something Huge That Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel Doesn't Know About History
In foreign policy the danger is intervention, not 'isolation'
Disco Doesn't Suck. Here's Why.
Once largely derided as shallow, faddish, consumerist music, disco has been reappraised as the stifled sounds of cultural liberation. Of course, it could always be both.
Immortal Keynes?
Anyone who has been watching President Obama's response to the Great Recession will realize that policymakers have learned little since the 1930s.
Friday A/V Club: Our Friendly Government Explains Why These Concentration Camps Are in Everyone's Best Interests
A propaganda film defends the internment of Japanese Americans.