Welcome to the New World Civilization
Even as specific states or regions rise and fade in prominence, their inhabitants continue to enjoy the benefits of their civilization's cumulative experience and knowledge.
History
Election 2000: The Last Holiday-from-History Election
"Do we have a president yet?" we laughed.
Seeing Like an Anarchist
How former slaves built an autonomous, self-sufficient, and nearly stateless society in the mountains of Haiti, and how they lost it
Yes, the 1619 Project Actually Suggests That Year Was America's True Founding, and Nikole Hannah-Jones Admits It
The New York Times tried to disassociate itself from a claim its reporter made just a few days ago.
Gun Control Puts Your Life at Risk
In the 20th century, far more people were murdered by genocidal governments than by armed criminals.
The Iranian Coup that Led to 67 Years of Reckless Intervention
The documentary Coup 53 explores how a seemingly easy regime change wrecked U.S. foreign policy for decades.
New Survey on Public Ignorance About the Holocaust
The poll shows extensive ignorance among millenials and Generation Z, and is consistent with many previous studies showing widespread ignorance about politics and history. But one of its findings may be less bad than it looks.
The World Is Doing Better Than Ever. Here's Why You Never Hear About It.
Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know documents progress and explains why it happens.
Ronald Bailey: The World Is Getting Cleaner, Richer, and Safer
Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know documents the immense, ongoing progress that politicians and media refuse to acknowledge.
Can the Republican Party Survive Trump?
A political party can be destroyed by warring factions after it nominates a celebrity candidate and loses its coherence. That’s what happened…after 1848, when the Whigs backed Zachary Taylor.
How the Government Created RCA
A century before its threats against TikTok, Washington pried a different media company out of foreign hands.
When Joe Biden Tried To Paint Clarence Thomas as a Crazy Libertarian
The episode reflects poorly on Biden.
Indians and Aliens
Human beings' disturbing capacity to manufacture history to serve our own ends
Should Congress Take Down Its Statue of Racist Chief Justice Roger Taney?
A bust of the Dred Scott author stands in the old Supreme Court chambers in the capitol.
John Lewis Was an American Hero Who Battled State Racism
John Lewis' life was a testament to the power of free speech and peaceful agitation.
A New Charles Manson Documentary Series Pulls All the Disturbing Threads Together
Helter Skelter: An American Myth doesn’t shed new light, but it’s excellent journalism.
From Antifa to UFOs, One Joke Can Spawn a Thousand Conspiracies
What happens when a prank or spoof sparks a real belief?
Golden State Killer's Capture Complicates Documentary I'll Be Gone in the Dark
What happens when a decades-long mystery gets solved while you’re explaining it?
Let's Have Fewer Public Statues
Those smitten by John Wayne, Robert E. Lee, or even Joseph Stalin should commission statues on their own property. The rest of us have more important issues to debate.
Marsha P. Johnson Probably Didn't Start Stonewall, and Might Not Have Been Trans. Does It Matter?
The media and activists are using revisionist history of the Stonewall Riots to fit their intersectional narrative.
The Media's Role in Concealing Stalin's Evils Exposed in Mr. Jones
Walter Duranty and The New York Times have blood on their hands in this historical re-enactment.
Drugs and Ammo
A look at war through the lens of the performance enhancers that help make it possible
All Statues Should Be Private
We should celebrate our fandom on our own dime, and on our own property.
Juneteenth, America's Other Independence Day, Is the Holiday We Need Right Now
Frederick Douglass: "There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour."
How Fox's 1997 Sunday Night Lineup Ate the Universe
Our reality is now Fox Mulder, Dale Gribble, Chief Wiggum, and a home movie of a guy getting hit in the groin.
The Rise and Fall and Rise Again of the 'Outside Agitator' Story
The perpetual scapegoat for unrest
I Got Tear Gassed at Baltimore's City Hall
If you are unwilling to do whatever you can to stop injustice, injustice is all the more likely to continue unabated.
Wild Rock Doc Laurel Canyon Travels Back to L.A.'s Stellar '60s Scene
In the winding hills above Hollywood, musical history was made.
No, Segregationists Weren't the Driving Force Behind School Choice
The anti-voucher polemic is augmented by historical half-truths and selective omissions of countervailing evidence.
How the Abolitionist Grandfathers of Modern Libertarianism Won by Losing—and Lost by Winning
While Europe was in revolt, America had its own Free Soil revolution of 1848.
The Immigration Law Nobody's Heard of That Changed America
Is COVID-19 bringing the mythology of America as a nation of immigrants to an end? Q&A with The New York Times' Jia Lynn Yang
Little Richard, the King and Queen of Rock 'n' Roll
Little Richard helped make the United States a little more black, a little more queer, and a little more free.
Sen. Josh Hawley's Plan To Abolish the World Trade Organization Is Based on Fake Economics and False History
Hawley is charting the next path for the Trump-style anti-trade nationalism that has infected the Republican Party.
The Late Murray Rothbard Takes on the Constitution
A lost volume of American history finds the light of day.
Capitalism vs. Slavery…and The New York Times' 1619 Project
Economic historian Phillip W. Magness on classical liberalism and abolition, Abraham Lincoln's contested legacy, and why history matters in contemporary politics.
COVID-19 and the Collapse of Complex Societies
Sometimes pressure causes breakdowns, but sometimes it causes breakthroughs.
What The New York Times' 1619 Project Gets Wrong About Capitalism: Phillip Magness
In a new collection, the economic historian documents how classical liberals pushed for abolition and equality in 19th-century America.
From the Cholera Riots to the Coronavirus Revolts
The more punitive the approach to public health, the fiercer the backlash.
Karl Hess: From Republican Speechwriter to New Left Radical to Libertarian Homesteader
Friday A/V Club: Daniel Tucker discusses his documentary Local Control: Karl Hess in the World of Ideas—and we also screen the movie itself.
