In 1935, a group of New York communists boarded a German luxury liner during a lavish sending-off party attended by celebrities, Rockefellers, and Roosevelts. Their goal: capture the swastika.
History
‘The South Is Different Now. So Are We.’
On two tours of the South, taken 20 years apart, Pete Candler uncovers truths about his family and the place he comes from.
A Deeper South
On two road trips wandering the backroads of the South — taken 20 years apart — Pete Candler discovers many truths about his family and the place he comes from.
This Month In Books: The Anxiety of No Influence
This month’s books newsletter has a lot to say about pasts and futures, and how lineages stretch across time.
How To Hide An Empire
Daniel Immerwahr says studying the history of the Greater United States opens our eyes to how “racism has shaped the actual country itself. The legal borders of the country, but also the borders of the heart.”
The True Story Behind an Iconic Vietnam War Photo Was Nearly Erased — Until Now
In February 1968, John Olson took a famous photo of a wounded Marine named Alvin Grantham. Or was it actually of another Marine named James Blaine? Michael Shaw examines the evidence to discover the truth.
Written On the Body: One Family’s History
“We, as family, got so much from their trash. I never wanted to forget that I was the janitor’s kid before I was anything else.”
‘I Saw My Countrymen Marched Out of Tacoma’
It started in Eureka, then it spread. Up and down the Pacific Coast, white mobs turned on Chinese-Americans.
In Defense of Schadenfreude
Historian Tiffany Watt Smith argues that schadenfreude, the joy we derive from another’s misfortune, is just a natural part of the very complex emotional responses we have as human beings.
Lightning, Struck: How an Atlanta Neighborhood Died on the Altar of Super Bowl Dreams
Thirty years ago, the entire community of Lightning, in Atlanta’s west side, was destroyed to build the Georgia Dome. This oral history, told by the residents that were displaced, compiles the stories and memories of a long-gone neighborhood.
