The US Post and the Making of the American West
How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United …
A pathbreaking history of the United States' overseas p…
Western Standard | The independent voice of the New West
westernstandard.news | The independent voice of the New West
The Closing of the Frontier — Tanya Verma
In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner argued that much that is distinctive about America was shaped by the existence of free land to the West where anyone could start over, and that this condition infused America with its characteristic liberty, egalitarianism, rejection of feudalistic hierarchy, self-sufficiency, and ambition.
The Birth of the Attention Economy
The rise of the cheap, daily newspaper in the 19th century remade how Americans engaged with the world.
The Water’s Edge: Empire, Race, and the Global History of Oakland, California, 1848-1980
Author(s): Klein, Andrew Nelson Carver | Advisor(s): Kelley, Robin D.G. | Abstract: This dissertation explores historical intersections between capitalism, race-making, environmental change, and U.S. foreign relations from the vantage of Oakland’s waterfront. It tracks the evolution of this geostrategic coastline since it emerged as a coal-powered nexus of railroads, steamships, and military installations during American colonization. Revising the story of Oakland’s development from a global perspective, my project documents how local boosters, businessmen, and bureaucrats forged intimate ties with far-flung territories administered by U.S. troops and landowners. Combining social and environmental history with methods from Black studies, I map the transformation of Oakland’s fertile estuary into an infilled hub of postindustrial commerce, a vital node of military logistics, and a focal point for racialized labor migration. Simultaneously, this dissertation reveals how, over the long twentieth century, Black, Indigenous, Chinese, and other working-class Oaklanders found footholds on the harbor, often repurposing its imperial routes for dramatically different ends. Drawing on archives and oral histories in Cuba, Hawai‘i, and across the continental United States, I trace Oakland’s tradition of radical internationalism, most visible in the antiwar and Black Power movements of the sixties, to multi-generational struggles over the governance of coastal land. I argue that Oakland’s waterfront both bridged the continental and overseas expansion of an ascendant world power and came to serve as a proving ground for alternative forms of globalization. “The Water’s Edge” therefore offers a critical reappraisal of the generally place-bound history of North American urbanism and far-reaching lessons for building just cities in a present defined by global environmental crises.
Why Robert Frank’s “The Americans” Matters Today
The photographer’s seminal monograph had a seismic impact on photography conventions and American culture.
The Reconstruction Papers
The Reconstruction Papers is available for pre-order in the US Pre-Order Now! For nearly a century, the conservative movement's white whale was the government the New Deal and the Great Society had built. Republicans chipped away at it but feared the political ramifications of going too far.
News for Black America - NewsOne
Breaking news for and about Black America: politics, original stories, diverse opinions, current events and their impact on Black lives.
Crossroads — Oakland Public Library
Crossroads — A collage of drawings, photographs, historical footage, interviews and location shooting, this documentary reconstructs the transformation of West Oakland from a pasture land to a port of entry for African Americans from the South. While job opportunities caused mass migration of ethnic groups to the area around the Second World War, the film also shows the population decline in West Oakland after the building of the Cypress Freeway and, later, BART. Southern Pacific Railroad's contribution to the development of the area is highlighted.
PaperTrail ✍ | Katie Mears | Substack
A newsletter about writing, culture, and creativity. Click to read PaperTrail ✍, by Katie Mears, a Substack publication.
‘A sanitized view of America’: inside Trump’s campaign to erase US history from national parks
Critics say the Trump administration is trying to rewrite and whitewash history by removing and altering scores of signs on public lands
The Road to Resegregation by Alex Schafran - Paper
Scholarship is a powerful tool for changing how people think, plan, and govern. By giving voice to bright minds and bold ideas, we seek to foster understanding and drive progressive change.
If you were curious about Tooze's new climate book, check out this convo with @kaiserkuo.bsky.social “This is the material dethroning of the west as the central driver of world history. This is really what the provincialization of the west really looks like" sinicapodcast.com/p/the-thing-we-still-cant-say…
Albert Pinto
Adam Tooze's book Carbon is finally going to be out in February 2027. Pre-order here! Climate Crisis and the Eclipse of the West