Features

Long-form articles by historians

Showing 121 - 144 of 196
The futuristic National Security Operations Center occupies a floor of the National Security Agency's headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.
America's "Big Brother": A Century of U.S. Domestic Surveillance
Trayvon Martin was on the cover of People magazine in 2012.
Justice Denied: The Killing of Trayvon Martin in Historical Perspective
Iranian postage stamp commemorating the shooting down of Iran Air 655 in 1988.
Viewpoint Iran: The Past and Present of the U.S.-Iran Standoff
Euro coins.
European Disunion: The Rise and Fall of a Post-War Dream?
Predator drone.
Aerial Torpedoes, Buzz Bombs, and Predators: The Long Cultural History of Drones
The GOP elephant and the Democratic Party's donkey.
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: America's Love Affair with the Two-Party System
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio becomes Pope Francis in March 2013.
Two Popes and a Primate: The Changing Face of Global Christianity
A rendering of the Grand Renaissance Dam.
Who Owns the Nile? Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia’s History-Changing Dam
This Cold War-era poster carries the slogan 'Chairman Mao is the great savior of the revolutionary peoples of the world' and an illustration of African freedom fighters reading a copy of Mao's little book of quotations.
A New World Order? Africa and China
1996 suicide bombing in Jerusalem.
The Human Use of Human Beings: A Brief History of Suicide Bombing
Elderly Mennonite couple in Pennsylvania.
Should Age Matter? How 65 Came to Be Old and Old Came to Be Ill
The Great Dome at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Democratizing American Higher Education: The Legacy of the Morrill Land Grant Act
This detail from an early-20th-century image over the entrance to an arms factory in Belgium depicts a European arms manufacturer selling a gun to a darker-skinned purchaser in an exotic setting.
"Merchants of Death": The International Traffic in Arms
Planned Parenthood supporters demonstrate in Columbus, Ohio, 2012.
From Commonplace to Controversial: The Different Histories of Abortion in Europe and the United States
Detail from the painting Liberty Leading the People, by Eugène Delacroix, commemorating the French Revolution of 1830.
Socialism Takes Over France, Again?
This detail from an illustration in a 1911 Industrial Workers of the World publication depicts a class of workers struggling to hold up finely dressed elites while they drink and dine.
From Karl Marx to Karl Rove: “Class Warfare” in American Politics
In 2007, Russia planted a titanium flag in the chilly arctic depths at the North Pole.
Russia and the Race for the Arctic
The father of a Syrian general killed in the civil war attends his son's funeral in Damascus in January 2012.
Syria's Islamic Movement and the 2011-12 Uprising
In this detail from a political cartoon, a caring woman whose garment reads 'liberty' symbolizes this humanitarian impulse.
Humanitarian Intervention: The American Experience from William McKinley to Barack Obama
Canada's Athabasca Glacier.
Climate, Human Population and Human Survival: What the Deep Past Tells Us about the Future
The statue of Saddam Hussein topples in Baghdad's Firdos Square on April 9, 2003.
A Century of U.S. Relations with Iraq
In Senegal, a protester holds a sign rejecting "monarchy" in the form of proposed changes to the constitution which would extend the current president's term in office.
"Y'En A Marre!" (We're Fed Up!): Senegal in the Season of Discontent
The political cartoon that led to the coining of the term Gerrymander.
Re-mapping American Politics: The Redistricting Revolution Fifty Years Later
In the last fifty years, global agricultural practices have favored growing ever fewer varieties of high-yielding crops, leading to fears that the loss of genetic diversity in food leaves the growing human population exposed to risks of food shortages from disease, pests, and climate change.
Conserving Diversity at the Dinner Table: Plants, Food Security, and Gene Banks