Features

Long-form articles by historians

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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
An Israeli solider stands guard on the road to Ismailia during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
From Gaza to Jerusalem: Is the Two State Solution under Siege?
Hundreds of people who lost jobs when freezing weather hit California in January 2007 line up to register for the Disaster Unemployment Assistance program funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Down and Out (Again): America’s Long Struggle with Mass Unemployment
Oil and coal dominated U.S. energy production in the twentieth century.
Energy Policy and the Long Transition in America
Soldiers patrol the boundary between Eritrea and Ethiopia after two years of fighting in 2000.
Avoiding the Scourge of War: The Challenges of United Nations Peacekeeping
A U.S. Coast Guard sailor stands guard over more than 40,000 pounds of Latin American cocaine seized in 2007 and valued at around $500 million.
The Shifting Terrain of Latin American Drug Trafficking
A ship moves along the Bosporus through Istanbul, part of the only sea route from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.
Outdoing Panama: Turkey’s ‘Crazy’ Plan to Build an Istanbul Canal
A projection of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange looms over author Micah Sifry (left) and activist Daniel Ellsberg during a video conference in June 2010.
WikiLeaks, and the Past and Present of American Foreign Relations
Protesters demonstrate against nuclear power and a storage facility at Rokkasho following the March 2011 disaster at Japan's Fukushima I power plant, the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl (1986).
'The Energy of a Bright Tomorrow': The Rise of Nuclear Power in Japan