The most popular historical analogy for current American troubles is the Civil War era. The second most popular is the Gilded Age. But where the 1850s do not meaningfully resemble today, the 1890s ce…

American politics turned hyper toxic several years ago, and ever since commentators have raised the specter of a second civil war. No other historical parallel, it seems, captures so viscerally today…

President George H.W. Bush’s many significant foreign policy achievements left the country and the world better off. 

Many of the supposedly unprecedented features of contemporary politics have familiar echoes in earlier American history, and so the best mirror in which to see our present moment clearly could be our…

The connection between the rise of social media and the decline of American politics and society seems obvious. But what if what everybody knows is wrong?