Future in Context
As a divided country wrestles with its future, it may be a good time to think about how we constitute a more perfect Union.
In the early years of the Republic, wives of politicians were often helpmates and could wield power despite their gender. Today, spouses challenge traditional gender norms in politics and have broad work portfolios.
The Constitution is silent on the number of justices on the Supreme Court. The independence of the judiciary is put in jeopardy when partisans settle political scores by rebalancing the courts.
As Congress debates the massive investment in American infrastructure, President Biden announces the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
Ken Burns and his team have helped put American history in context through documentaries on topics ranging from the Civil War and Vietnam to jazz and baseball. Their latest takes on one of America’s greatest and complicated writers.
A prolific and outspoken author contends the term "populism" has been turned on its head, and not since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has the White House been occupied by a man of the people.
A new book chronicles the stories of sometimes broken, often desperate men who ventured to the northern plains in service of an industry that exemplifies late-stage capitalism.
A decade ago, Williston, N.D., became a magnet for desperate men, thanks to oil in the Bakken Formation. In an interview, author Michael Smith talks about life in an oil patch and the human cost of fueling the nation.
The recent Senate confirmation of the first Indigenous American, Deb Haaland, to lead a Cabinet department gives us reason to rethink our assumptions about First Nations’ relationship to power. A new book can help.
An important new book, Apollo’s Arrow, precisely targets what America got right in its COVID-19 response, and where it must do better next time. And there will be a next time.
The author of a new book on the coronavirus discusses how political expediency and an immature public have impaired America’s ability to meet the challenges and what we have learned as a country and what we have not.
The preparations for President Biden’s as-yet-unscheduled State of the Union address are haunted by a 400-year-old conspiracy to decapitate the British government. What can we learn from the Gunpowder Plot?
When a president leaves the White House, he enters one of the most elite clubs. A book by two of America’s leading journalists looks at what binds these individuals together, given their personalities and politics.
The printing press and social media democratized communication in their respective times. They both turned the order of things on its head — for good, for ill, and forever.
The COVID-19 pandemic reinforced how central technology is to modern life, but perhaps we are losing something.
In 1800, the country struggled to survive its first transition of power between John Adams, America’s first one-term president, and Thomas Jefferson, thanks to political intrigue, chaos and panic.
With incoming President Joe Biden pledging to unify the country, author David French talks about the nation’s current divide, whether the country is in decline and the prospects for a lasting union.
Transfers of power, a hallmark of our constitutional system, often come with shocks to the system. Trump’s refusal to concede may seem unprecedented, but it’s not the first time this has happened.
Editor-at-Large Clay Jenkinson and Professor Ed Watts explore what insights can be gained studying the last years of the Roman Republic and whether that has particular relevance in our own time.
For more than two centuries, the vice president has held little power, despite the position’s prominence. That may be changing, but the story of the No. 2 job in America is full of historical quirks.
The election of 1800 was the first time power was transferred from one political party to another. Hoping for a smooth transition involving prominent Founding Fathers, the country ended up with a constitutional crisis.
Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results isn’t the first effort to change the outcome of a close race. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson faced a similar and chaotic post-electoral problem.
Presidential elections, your vote, and the quest for legitimacy. Unlike Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, President-elect Joe Biden appears to have won both the popular vote and the Electoral College.
The peaceful transfer of power is a hallmark of American political life. But troubling talk from Trump, should he lose, has raised concerns and a reason to look back and examine the history of presidential changes.
If Trump’s third Supreme Court nominee is confirmed by the Senate, there is no guarantee she will continue to hold views congenial to the president. But does America still want its justices to be unelected and unaccountable?
David French’s new book, "Divided We Fall," is a warning of what might happen to America as it becomes less united than at any time since the Civil War. But there are concrete steps the country can take to bridge the gulf.
President Trump’s illness from the coronavirus has become immediate news, with the entire country pondering what might happen. But previous presidents who became ill were able to keep their health problems under wraps.
With concerns growing that this year’s election may end up in the hands of the Supreme Court or the House of Representatives, history shows this happened once before in the "dangerous election" of 1800.
Presidential appointments to the highest level of the judicial branch, even during lame-duck sessions, have a long history in American politics, dating back to Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in 1800.
Great nations have shared values, shared aspirations and a shared historical narrative. That does not mean everyone agrees, but there has to be at least a baseline understanding of our national purpose that we can agree on.
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