Ronald Reagan's notorious "states' rights" pledge in Mississippi in 1980 was actually damaging to his campaign. The Gipper needed all his political skill and actor's discipline to rebuild his standing with moderates while still appealing to resentful white voters. Donald Trump lacks the skill to pull off the same trick.
1877 saw a wave of mass protests and strikes by the urban poor of multiple ethnicities, violent repression by the forces of law and order, and a news media that focused on sensational instances of looting and property damage while ignoring the protesters' complaints about inequality during a brutal economic downturn.
Nat Turner followed his evangelical faith to challenge a profane and degenerate slaveholding regime. Today's white evangelical Christians must decide whether to support the successor of that regime.
An economist and economic historian argue that a well-planned response to the economic disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic could result in economic recoveries like those that followed the two World Wars.
The indifferent response of the Trump administration to the COVID-19 pandemic and the repressive police response to protests are a signal that we need a political and social transformation to address the ongoing global climate crisis.
The use of federal troops to enforce domestic law and order has usually served the interests of big business and white supremacy; recent calls to send in the troops are not concerned with protecting freedom.
In an environment of intense mutual suspicion—soldiers accused civilians of stingy ingratitude while civilians saw the army as a threat to their liberty—Washington's trustworthiness bound the two sides together.
Walter Mondale's choice of Representative Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate in 1984 opened the major parties' general election tickets to women for the first time. Will Joe Biden's campaign fulfill that promise this year?
A historian of public perceptions of the Vietnam War (who served as a military chaplain there) warns that Spike Lee's latest film traffics in stereotypes of both American veterans and the Vietnamese people while reinforcing right-wing narratives about the war.
Joseph Biden is urged to remember John F. Kennedy's admiration and celebration of achievement and Franklin Roosevelt's spirit of pragmatic experimentation in his campaign. Should he be elected, he'll need inspiration to lead the nation out of dire circumstances.
A historian of criminal justice contends that two conceptual boundaries--between North and South and between lynching and police force--help conceal the racist violence in the American system of justice.
In an excerpt from the new book Brother Robert, Annye Anderson, sister of blues legend Robert Johnson, describes time spent with Johnson in Memphis, and the trends in music, movies, and black politics that shaped Johnson's personality and his music.
"Churchill also had an ability to express empathy, which was an important element in a time of war. It was not unusual to see him openly weeping at the scene of a bombing, something I can't imagine our current president doing on any occasion, ever."
Historically the powerful have described deaths from disease and starvation as "natural" to hide the political nature of suffering and their own responsibility. To mourn is to fight this erasure.
We are going to hear much in the near future about the dangers of Chinese ambition. World leaders would be well advised, however, to prepare for the dangers of internal Chinese instability.
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