CATEGORIES

Kennedy and the Lost Cause
The Atlantic

Kennedy and the Lost Cause

In his 1956 book, Profiles in Courage, the future president promoted the southern mythology of Reconstruction. One Massachusetts grandmother wasn't having it.

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10+ mins  |
December 2023
The Black Roots of American Education
The Atlantic

The Black Roots of American Education

How freedpeople and their advocates persuaded the nation to embrace public schooling for all

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10+ mins  |
December 2023
A Traitor to the Traitors
The Atlantic

A Traitor to the Traitors

The Confederate general James Longstreet became a champion of Reconstruction. Why?

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10+ mins  |
December 2023
The Men Who Started the War
The Atlantic

The Men Who Started the War

John Brown and the Secret Six-the abolitionists who funded the raid on Harpers Ferryconfronted a question as old as America: When is violence justified?

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10+ mins  |
December 2023
The Years of Jubilee
The Atlantic

The Years of Jubilee

In 1871, the choir of the struggling Fisk University engaged in a gambit to save the school: It decided to go on a singing tour of America. The choir achieved more than its members could have imagined.

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10+ mins  |
December 2023
The Annotated Frederick Douglass
The Atlantic

The Annotated Frederick Douglass

In 1866, the famous abolitionist laid out his vision for radically reshaping America in the pages of The Atlantic.

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10+ mins  |
December 2023
The Archive of Emancipation
The Atlantic

The Archive of Emancipation

In the papers of the Freedmen's Bureau, I found the hopes and disappointments of a people on the cusp of freedom-including my own family's.

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10+ mins  |
December 2023
The Atlantic and Reconstruction
The Atlantic

The Atlantic and Reconstruction

What we got wrong in 1901

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5 mins  |
December 2023
The Revolution Never Ended
The Atlantic

The Revolution Never Ended

The federal government abandoned Reconstruction in 1877, but Black people didn't give up on the moment's promise.

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10+ mins  |
December 2023
The Questions That Most Need Asking
The Atlantic

The Questions That Most Need Asking

“Reconstruction,” by Frederick Douglass, appeared in the December 1866 issue of this magazine. It was the most important article that The Atlantic published in the immediate postwar era. It was also, for its time, unusually concise, coming in at a mere 2,703 words.

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4 mins  |
December 2023
What Is Comedy For?
The Atlantic

What Is Comedy For?

The question has never been harder to answer.

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5 mins  |
November 2023
Madonna Forever
The Atlantic

Madonna Forever

Why the artist keeps scandalizing each generation anew

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10+ mins  |
November 2023
The Smartest Man Who Ever Lived
The Atlantic

The Smartest Man Who Ever Lived

A novelist transforms the physicist John von Neumann into a scientific demon

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10 mins  |
November 2023
WHAT ΜΙΤΤ RΟΜΝΕΥ SAW ΙΝ ΤΗE SENATE
The Atlantic

WHAT ΜΙΤΤ RΟΜΝΕΥ SAW ΙΝ ΤΗE SENATE

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, THE HYPOCRISY AND CYNICISM ARE EVEN WORSE THAN YOU THINK

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10+ mins  |
November 2023
Her?
The Atlantic

Her?

No one seems to think Kamala Harris is ready to be president. Here's what they're missing.

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10+ mins  |
November 2023
We Are Not at War.We Are at Work.
The Atlantic

We Are Not at War.We Are at Work.

RUNNING THE WASHINGTON POST IN DONALD TRUMP'S D.C.

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10+ mins  |
November 2023
THE PATRIOT
The Atlantic

THE PATRIOT

What does a general do when the commander in chief undermines the Constitution?

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10+ mins  |
November 2023
BLACK SUCCESS, WHITE BACKLASH
The Atlantic

BLACK SUCCESS, WHITE BACKLASH

Black prosperity has provoked white resentment that can make life exhausting for people of color-and it has led to the undoing of policies that have nurtured Black advancement

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10+ mins  |
November 2023
Zadie Smith Has Doubts About Fiction
The Atlantic

Zadie Smith Has Doubts About Fiction

In her ambitious new novel, she asks whether we expect too much of the genre.

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10+ mins  |
October 2023
The Man Who Became Uncle Tom
The Atlantic

The Man Who Became Uncle Tom

Harriet Beecher Stowe said that Josiah Henson's life had inspired her most famous character. But Henson longed to be recognized by his own name, and for his own achievements.

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10+ mins  |
October 2023
Life After "I Do"
The Atlantic

Life After "I Do"

George Eliot's subversive vision of marriage

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10 mins  |
October 2023
The Other Naomi
The Atlantic

The Other Naomi

A left-wing author finds herself constantly confused with a right-wing conspiracist.

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8 mins  |
October 2023
I, Sly
The Atlantic

I, Sly

Sly Stone tells his story.

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5 mins  |
October 2023
THE FINAL DAYS
The Atlantic

THE FINAL DAYS

JOE BIDEN WAS DETERMINED TO GET OUT OF AFGHANISTAN-NO MATTER THE COST

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10+ mins  |
October 2023
The Joy and the Funk and the Mire
The Atlantic

The Joy and the Funk and the Mire

The critic dream hampton thinks hip-hop is broken. But she can't stop trying to fix it.

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10+ mins  |
October 2023
THE PRIME MINISTER and THE MOONIES
The Atlantic

THE PRIME MINISTER and THE MOONIES

THE BIZARRE STORY BEHIND THE ASSASSINATION OF SHINZO ABE

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10+ mins  |
October 2023
Jenisha From Kentucky
The Atlantic

Jenisha From Kentucky

I came to New York sure of one thing-that no one could ever know my past.

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10+ mins  |
October 2023
NIXON BETWEEN THE LINES
The Atlantic

NIXON BETWEEN THE LINES

Alone in his study, ballpoint pen in hand, the president revealed himself in the margins of his books.

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10+ mins  |
October 2023
TRUMP ON TRIAL
The Atlantic

TRUMP ON TRIAL

The drama now unfolding will make for perhaps the most surreal presidential-election cycle in American history. How will it end?

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10 mins  |
October 2023
A Sunnier Edvard Munch
The Atlantic

A Sunnier Edvard Munch

A new exhibition offers a counterpoint to The Scream.

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6 mins  |
September 2023