Podcast Listen in: And Still the Waters Run November 20, 2024 And Still the Waters Run tells the tragic story of the liquidation of the independent Indian republics of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks, and Seminoles, known as the Five Civilized Tribes. At the turn of the twentieth century, the tribes owned the eastern half of what is now Oklahoma, a territory immensely wealthy in farmland, forests, coal, and oil. Read More
Essay Protecting or punishing women through an ‘empire of purity’? November 13, 2024 Debates over women’s right to bodily autonomy and how the government might best protect women marked the 2024 US presidential race. Read More
Essay How to solve a refugee crisis November 13, 2024 There are always some good people who try to help out when disaster strikes. Tents, blankets, medicine and food enable refugees to survive at a minimal level. But none of this solves the underlying question of what to do with them if they can’t or won’t return to their homelands. Read More
Podcast The Migrant’s Jail October 23, 2024 Today, U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains an average of 37,000 migrants each night. To do so, they rely on, and pay for, the use of hundreds of local jails. Read More
Essay Eugenic fantasies October 17, 2024 The topic of intellectual disability seems frequently to function as a conversation stopper, and establishing the full humanity of individuals with complex developmental impairments has been an ongoing struggle in every nation in the world, including the U.S. Read More
Essay Jews, Europe, and the origins of antisemitism: A new approach August 23, 2024 The Jews—real and imagined—so challenged the Christian majority that it became a society that was religiously and culturally antisemitic in new ways between 800 and 1500. Their new self-understanding remained part of different groups’ cultural identity down to the time of the Holocaust and beyond to the present day. Read More
Podcast Reading Herzl in Beirut August 15, 2024 In September 1982, the Israeli military invaded West Beirut and Israel-allied Lebanese militiamen massacred Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Read More
Essay Forbidden texts August 12, 2024 When was the last time you read a forbidden text? Not forbidden in some other time and place, but here and now, a text that, were it discovered in your possession, might land you in prison? Read More
Podcast Sacred Foundations August 07, 2024 Anna Grzymała-Busse is the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies at Stanford University, where she is also senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Her books include Nations under God: How Churches Use Moral Authority to Influence Policy (Princeton). Read More
Podcast Listen in: The Fire Is upon Us August 02, 2024 A remarkable story of race and the American dream, The Fire Is upon Us reveals the deep roots and lasting legacy of a conflict that continues to haunt our politics. Read More
Podcast Hillbilly Highway July 22, 2024 Over the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, as many as eight million whites left the economically depressed southern countryside and migrated to the booming factory towns and cities of the industrial Midwest in search of work. Read More
Essay Volatile waters, fluid histories July 12, 2024 It can be depressing these days to read about the state of the world’s water supplies. This is a global problem, but it is undoubtedly most acute in the so-called global south, where population is growing fastest and water infrastructures are least robust. As pressing as these challenges are today, they have a long history. Read More
Podcast Puerto Rico May 24, 2024 Jorell Meléndez-Badillo provides a new history of Puerto Rico that gives voice to the archipelago’s people while offering a lens through which to understand the political, economic, and social challenges confronting them today. Read More
Interview Michael A. Cook on A History of the Muslim World May 15, 2024 Over the years Michael Cook has accumulated a large fund of material in the course of teaching students about the history of the Muslim world. So what was he to do with it? Read More
Interview Jorell Meléndez-Badillo on Puerto Rico: A National History April 12, 2024 Jorell Meléndez-Badillo provides a new history of Puerto Rico that gives voice to the archipelago’s people while offering a lens through which to understand the political, economic, and social challenges confronting them today. Read More
