Beverly Gage: The Dark Truth About J. Edgar Hoover's FBI
The first FBI director wasn't all bad (or a cross-dresser). But he and the agency he created regularly flouted constitutional limits on power.
History
The Covert War on Christmas
Friday A/V Club: That time Orson Welles tried to assassinate St. Nick
Review: When Americans Turned Their Backs on Holocaust Refugees
The U.S. and the Holocaust condemns anti-refugee policies of the World War II era.
Bartender Jacob Grier: Craft Cocktail Freedom and the Terrible Science Behind Vaping Bans
Q&A with Jacob Grier, co-author of Raising the Bar: A Bottle-by-Bottle Guide to Mixing Masterful Cocktails at Home.
It's Way Past Time To Release the Rest of the JFK Assassination Files
Joe Biden just declassified another batch, but the government is still keeping some under wraps.
Thanos Was Wrong: More People Means More Wealth
Superabundance explains why a world of 8 billion people is infinitely richer than one with 1 billion.
Why Sex Work Should Be Destigmatized, Not Just Decriminalized
Kaytlin Bailey wants to decriminalize—and normalize—the world's oldest profession.
The Woman Who Spearheaded Prohibition's Repeal
Pauline Sabin was a freedom-loving heroine.
Sick of the Pilgrims? Celebrate Roger Williams Instead
While we often spend Thanksgiving remembering a different set of Puritan settlers, the religious, freedom-loving Roger Williams is an apt hero for the more liberty-minded.
Libertarian History/Philosophy
Andrew Koppelman: 'Delusion and Greed' Have Destroyed Libertarianism
The Burning Down the House author says the shift from Hayek's classical liberalism to Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism is a moral and practical disaster.
How Woke Mobs Ruined Everything and What To Do About It
Andrew Doyle on the "new puritans" and their godawful religion of social justice.
The Theoretical Lethality Index is useful for military history but not for gun control policy
Professors Miller and Tucker miss the mark, while Saul Cornell disdains accuracy
Gregor Mendel, the Father of Genetics and a Tax Resister, Turns 200
Mendel had a history of run-ins with the state.
When Karl Marx Made the Case for Capitalism
In barely a century, capitalism led to more productivity "than have all preceding generations together," Marx and Friedrich Engels argued.
The U.S. Imprisoned a Civil Rights Leader on Bogus Charges in 1917. Will Biden Pardon Her Now?
A new petition seeks a posthumous pardon for Callie House.
The Woman King Rewrites History for a Feminist Twist on the Slave Trade
Hollywood often takes liberties. But there's a distinction to be made between poetic license and historical revisionism.
Ken Burns, Lynn Novick: How Closed Borders Helped Facilitate the Holocaust
A new PBS series underscores the long, deadly shadow cast by xenophobia, antisemitism, and restrictive immigration laws.
How the U.S. Paid for the Civil War
Lincoln's wartime governance had dire, and longstanding, economic consequences.
How Closed Borders Helped Facilitate the Holocaust
A new PBS series by Ken Burns argues xenophobia, the Great Depression, incredulity toward the media, and State Department antisemitism combined to keep Jewish refugees out of America.
Phil Magness: Holding Leftists and Libertarians Accountable
The intellectual watchdog keeps tabs on everyone from The 1619 Project's Nikole Hannah-Jones to Mises Institute's Hans-Hermann Hoppe in the name of serious scholarship.
Review: The Brutality of British Empire on Display in Legacy of Violence
Caroline Elkins' book raises an important question for people today, particularly liberals—an issue that Elkins herself sidesteps.
Libertarian History/Philosophy
Beyond The 1619 Project: Holding Academics and Journalists Accountable
Intellectual watchdog Phil Magness talks Nikole Hannah-Jones, Nancy MacLean, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and Kevin Kruse.
The Queen Is Dead. Anarchy in the U.K.?
Plus: The editors respond to a question about the Forward Party.
Maybe a Ceremonial Monarchy Can Show the Way to a Less Powerful State
The real danger to citizens is the use of coercive government power, no matter how it’s named.
Ohio Supreme Court Justice Expresses Doubt About Appellate Decisions About History in Second Amendment Cases
But wouldn't the arguments in the dissent equally cast doubt on all historical analysis in constitutional cases, or even statutory or common-law cases?
How George Dawes Greene's The Moth Reinvented Storytelling
The novelist talks about The Kingdoms of Savannah and creating The Moth.
How Stalin Toyed With Mikhail Bulgakov
The author of The Master and Margarita faced a bewildering mixture of rewards and censorship.
The Ballad of Rachel Maddow, Eddie Chiles, and J.R. 'Bob' Dobbs
Friday A/V Club: One cable host's capacity for unearned smugness
R.I.P. David McCullough, Who Saw the Bright Side of History
McCullough didn't just build on academic historians' work—he filled a gap they left.
George Dawes Green: Why the Past—and Storytelling—Is Never Dead
The creator of The Moth talks about why the past is never dead, especially in his new novel The Kingdoms of Savannah.
Zuby: 'When I'm in the U.S., My Mind Is Blown by the Opportunities Here'
The "British by birth" and "Nigerian by blood" rapper and podcaster thinks Americans don't fully appreciate the freedom they have.
The Progressive Imperialism of Smedley Butler
The Marine turned anti-imperialist had two very different legacies, but both clearly emerged from the same man.
A Black Family's Property Was Seized via Eminent Domain. A Century Later, Their Descendants Just Got It Back.
Segregation-era racists tried to drive the Bruces away from their own beachfront property. When intimidation didn't work, they resorted to the power of the state.
Happy 200th Birthday, Gregor Mendel
Remembering the world’s first geneticist, and a tax protester to boot
Great Moments in Unintended Consequences: Rent Control, Arizona Alt Fuel, Ballot Access (Vol. 8)
Good intentions, bad results.
A New History of the Old Right
On the American right, populism has always been lurking in the shadows.
The Quest for a Libertarian Island Paradise
Raymond B. Craib's new book recounts how Michael Oliver repeatedly tried to create a new country with a government funded entirely by voluntary contributions.
In The Listeners, Brian Hochman Details History of Eavesdropping
Wiretapping and eavesdropping used to be the norm. Perhaps privacy was always an illusion after all.
Juneteenth Is a Celebration for Everyone
Plus: Fentanyl copaganda, the perils of antitrust populism, a January 6 meme is born, and more...
Is Twitter-Famous Princeton Historian Kevin Kruse a Plagiarist?
His 2000 thesis on civil-rights-era Atlanta lifts passages from other people's work.
Political Violence Escalates in a Fracturing U.S.
Tensions won’t simmer down until Americans stop fearing power in the hands of enemies.
Medieval Geopolitics Help Explain Modern Russia and Ukraine
The events of 2022 can be seen as another chapter in a very long story: Ukraine looking westward and seeking freedom while Russia slides deeper into autocracy.
Today Marks 80 Years Since Congress Last Bothered To Declare a War
Presidents once treated congressional authorization as a requirement for the U.S. to enter conflicts. What went wrong?
Review: My History Can Beat Up Your Politics
The political podcast uses relevant history to contextualize controversial current events.
Book Review: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity
Early cities' concentrated populations and burgeoning scale didn't spontaneously summon pharaonic god-kings or bureaucrats.
Tucker Carlson's Great Replacement Theory Is Spectacularly Wrong
Republicans have thrived since Ronald Reagan granted amnesty to 2.7 million mostly Mexican illegal immigrants in 1986.
Zora Neale Hurston's Inconvenient Individualism
The author of Their Eyes Were Watching God defies easy political categorization.
