How one group's search for the promised land in 1848 became a complete disaster

Constitutions were a great democratic advance. Unfortunately ours is broken.

Members of the Ku Klux Klan did not wear their distinctive white uniform until Hollywood—and a mail-order catalog—intervened.

How the internet brought about the demise of an illustrious profession.

A history professor explores the ways Nazi symbols and rituals influenced Christmas celebrations in the Third Reich.

Edmund de Waal’s new book is an odyssey into an obsession with porcelain.

The history of tap dancing in America is a joyful and troubled story.

The psychology of a hip house plant.

A pair of academics reconstruct the life of a Victorian bachelor.

The long history of gender variance in culture and medicine.

Mary Beard writes the people’s history of Rome in her new book “SPQR.”

How the former slave and abolitionist became the most photographed man in America.

Two new books chronicle the changes on St. Marks Place and rue des Martyrs

The Nazis created a wholesome, nature-loving image for Hitler at his mountain retreats. We've never fully dismissed it.