Trump and the Divine Rights of Kings
By Ed Simon
The Latest 
-
Kurdish Stalingrad: The Origins of the US-YPG Battle Synergy
Robert Troy Souza
The American president would be wise to familiarize himself with the recent history that led to the small falafel shop in central Kobane that bears his name.
-
A Democratic GUT-Check: A Grand Unifying Theory of Democratic Victories
Jeff Bloodworth
The preceding century of Democratic presidential politicking reveals that “electability” is not milquetoast, split the difference centrism. Historically, Democrats win when they adhere to a grand unifying theory (GUT).
-
Melania Trump Just Restarted a 100-Year-Old Political Controversy: The White House Tennis Court
Ryan Swanson
Presidents, be wary of associating with country club sports during times of political crisis.
-
To Stop The Rise of Nationalism, We Must Remember High-Tech’s Role in Supporting Past and Present Nationalistic Agendas
Clyde W. Ford
Since the dawn of the digital age, nationalism has relied on digital technology.
-
A History of Influencing Presidential Children to Change Policy
Aaron Coy Moulton
How Dominican Dictator Rafael Trujillo used the ambassador to the Dominican Republic's son to try to influence American foreign policy.
-
The Greatest Danger in the Kurdish Crisis
Zaman Stanizai
If the heavy-handedness of the Turkish military is any indication, Erdogan seems to be bent on the ethnic cleansing and relocation of Kurds in northern Syria and resettling their lands along the Turkish border with Arab Syrian refugees currently residing in Turkey.
-
Can a 1960s-like Counterculture Emerge?
Walter G. Moss
Today we have just as much reason to protest as did the 1960’s dissidents. We need a counterculture, or an opposing culture or way of life, to embolden our emotions and imaginations and challenge "throaway" consumer culture.
-
American Historian Claire Arcenas on John Locke, Teaching, and More
Erik Moshe
“The past’s distance—and nearness—informs how we do history.”
-
Modi's 'two nations' theory roils India
B.Z. Khasru
By scraping Kashmir's status, the prime minister has taken a highly risky step toward making the misguided dream of the right-wing Hindu extremists come true and shaken up secular India.
-
Can Studying Human Evolution Help Us Understand Impeachment?
David P. Barash
What The Goodness Paradox can teach us about the importance of enforcing societal norms.
-
Blog
Jimmy Carter's Presidency Contrasts Sharply with Trump's
Ronald L. Feinman
Carter will always be considered a better president by historians and political scientists. By the American public, Carter will...
-
The History Briefing on Indigenous Peoples Day: Why Fewer Places Celebrate Columbus Day
Elisabeth Pearson
As Trump's statement this past week revealed, despite the increasing deamnds since the 1990s to change Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s day, the public narrative of the holiday is still contested.
-
An Act of Betrayal and Infamy
Alon Ben-Meir
To think that the President would sell America’s interests and abandon its allies for the sake of personal financial gain is not merely outrageous but criminal.
-
The Internet at 50: Four Steps in Transforming the Digital World
Harlan Lebo
The internet may have been “born” in October 1969, but it then percolated for years as complex, near-impenetrable masses of data stored in computers around the world. Online technology would evolve for more than two decades before it would become practical for everyone to use.
-
Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.
-
Blog
Breaking Down Republican Lawmakers' Defenses of Trump
Steve Hochstadt
Only a very few Republican Senators have taken the evidence we all have seen seriously.
-
Love in Post World War II Paris
Bruce Chadwick
An American in Paris is a complicated story of a man who loves a woman.
-
Over the Rainbow to Oz Once Again with Judy
Bruce Chadwick
The story of the film classic is told in a bright, cheerful new musical, Chasing Rainbows, the Road to Oz, that opened last week at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey,
-
Blog
Should We Care About Presidential Age?
Ronald L. Feinman
Age seems even more important after Sanders suffered a heart attack earlier this month.
-
What the Lincoln-Douglas Debates Can Teach Presidential Contenders
Georgiann Baldino
The Lincoln-Douglas debates became pivotal moments in national politics, and their lessons are vital today.
-
The Founders’ Furious Impeachment Debate--and Benjamin Franklin’s Modest Proposal
Harlow Giles Unger
“This Magistrate is not the king! The people are the king!”
-
Rethinking Polygamy: An Interview with Sarah M.S. Pearsall
Kyla Sommers
"Polygamy controversies place us amid major events in early America because such clashes were about the organization and governance not just of house- holds but of societies, nations, and empires.”
-
The Original War on Terror
Eric Laursen
A review of Nunzio Pernicone and Fraser M. Ottanelli, Assassins against the Old Order: Italian Anarchist Violence in Fin de Siècle Europe.
-
The Moral Compass of America’s Most Distinguished Soldier and Statesman
James Thornton Harris
George Marshall’s honesty and modesty were a key to his success.
-
International Resistance in World War 2 Europe
Olivier Wieviorka
While national histories of wartime resistance are plentiful, the European dimension of the shadow army has rarely been taken into account.
-
RetroReport is Building a Living Library of Modern News Events
Learn about RetroReport on PBS with this interview with executive producer Kyra Darnton.
-
Author Christian Di Spigna Is On a Mission to Honor a Revolutionary War Hero
Michael McQuillan
A review of Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution’s Lost Hero.
-
Trump and A History of Presidential Anti-Semitism
Donne Levy
As with so many Trump blunders, he is apparently ignorant of the history and nature of anti-Semitism in America.
-
The United States is Not a Healthy Democracy: An Interview with Richard C. Lyons
Andrew Fletcher and Jonathan Montano
"Power is aggregating away from the people’s representative assemblies of house and senate and into the executive branches myriad agencies and into the judicial branch."
-
The History Briefing On This Week's Impeachment Updates: How Historians Helped Us Understand the News
Paige Morse
Historians play a key role in contextualizing current events for the public.
-
The History Briefing on Pregnancy Discrimination: What Historians Had to Say About This Week’s News
Isabella DelPino
How historians discussed pregnancy discrimination this week.
-
Blog
-
The History Briefing on Whistleblowers: How Historians Covered Breaking News
Sam Mastrianni
How historians helped us understand whistleblowers the past week.
-
Roundup Top 10!
This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editor of HNN.
-
Blog
The Impeachment Inquiry Reveals Trump's Narcissism and Republican's Compliance
Steve Hochstadt
Unless more Republicans than the few so far show that they believe that he is a menace to our country, the impeachment inquiry will have little effect on the 2020 election. And that is the vote tha...
-
A Brooding, Psychotic New Joker Joins the Batman Legend
Bruce Chadwick
Bruce Chadwick examines the history of the character of the Joker and reviews the latest film.
-
A Chilling Play Grapples With How We Are All Connected to Slavery
Bruce Chadwick
Can you shake off American history?
-
How Ideologues and Partisans Seized the Court: From Nixon to Trump
Thom Hartmann
When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. —Richard M. Nixon
-
Evil in the Delta: Elaine, Arkansas, 1919
Michael K. Honey
One hundred years ago, in the “Red Summer” of 1919, rampaging whites killed hundreds and perhaps thousands of African Americans in pogroms and race riots.
-
Why Are Americans So Confused About the Meaning of “Democratic Socialism”?
Lawrence Wittner
Despite Sanders’ personal popularity and the popularity of the programs he advocates, large numbers of Americans―especially from older generations―remain uneasy about “socialism.”
-
The New McCarthyism?
Andrew Feffer
Unfortunately, the term has become almost entirely evacuated of its historical and political meaning. Historians need to set the record straight.
-
Holly Jackson on the History Lessons of American Radicals
HNN Staff
"As we grapple with the deep roots and long aftermath of colonialism, slavery, capitalist exploitation, it’s important to know that there was always profound opposition to those forces as well."
-
Why Can’t Trump Admit Mistakes? It’s an Old Strategy Explained by Hitler
Cody Cain
When maintaining a falsehood, even a slight crack can bring it all crashing down.
-
Incognegro: How Law Enforcement Spies on Black Radical Groups
L.E.J. Rachell
From COINTELPRO to Black Lives Matter.
-
On Weather and History
M. Andrew Holowchak
Thomas Jefferson’s Climate-Induced “Philosophical Hangover” Explained.
-
Revolutionary Inspiration for Moral Choices in Trump's America
T.H. Breen
Revolutionaries upheld the rule of law and decided that patriotism could best be expressed by preserving the fundamental principles of habeas corpus and due process.
-
The Middle East: Must We Fight Forever?
Harlow Giles Unger
Almost 235 years have elapsed since John Adams warned against America’s first military involvement in the Arab world. The United States today seems well on the way to fulfilling Adams’s prophecy that we will “fight them forever.”
-
The Nazi Census and a Quiet Hero
Dwight Harshbarger
The census and discrimination from Nazi Germany to today.
-
Blog
The Challenge of the Democratic Primary
Ronald L. Feinman
Trying to determine a tenable strategy for 2020 is a crucial project that requires creativity and decisiveness.
-
What Abraham Lincoln Got Right About Addiction
Ed Simon
This National Recovery Month, Ed Simon examines the history of addiction recovery movements.
-
Blog
We Don’t Know What We Are Doing
Steve Hochstadt
Now is the tipping point. And we don’t know what we are doing.
-
In The Great Society, We Get a Marvelous, If Painful, Look at LBJ and the War that Won’t Go Away
Bruce Chadwick
This powerful play is a painful reminder of history lost, of all those brave Americans who fought so gallantly for their country in that war, and came home battered and defeated.
News
- USA Today Publishes New Articles As Part Of Series, "1619: Searching for Answers"
- Washington doesn't have a Latino history museum. These people are hoping to change that
- A history of key United Auto Workers strikes against GM
- Fact-checking Andrew Yang on history of universal basic income
- Hobby Lobby Will Return Biblical Antiquities Allegedly Stolen by Oxford Professor
- Historians Allison Horrocks and Mary Mahoney bring history to life in podcast
- Modern art historian, US museum director and clergyman EA Carmean, Jr has died, age 74
- Historian Andrew David Teaching Impeachment during an Impeachment Inquiry
- Historian Brad Simpson Says He's Never Read a Letter As Unhinged As Trump's To Erdogan
- Academic Twitter's Gender Imbalance
Trending Now
