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Vicente L. Rafael on how a massacre in the Philippines faded from American history

The New York Review of Books

Massacre Under the Starry Flag | Vicente L. Rafael

The history of a single photograph reveals how an atrocity in the Philippines was forgotten by its American perpetrators.

Eric Foner on when the underground railroad took to the sea

The New York Review of Books

The Underground Railroad’s Stealth Sailors | Eric Foner

The web of Atlantic trading routes and solidarity among maritime workers, many of them Black, meant fugitive slaves’ chances of reaching freedom ...

“The members of the Indiana Women’s Prison History Project demolish many of the myths surrounding the institution, proving that its founders…were far more abusive than conventional accounts suggest.” —Scott W. Stern

The New York Review of Books

Writing Their Prison’s History | Scott W. Stern

A recent study by a group of incarcerated scholars at Indiana Women’s Prison reveals how progressive reforms turned into profitable abuse.

“The question Where are you from? will cease to be suspicious only when the question Where are you going? is asked just as often.” —Ilija Trojanow

The New York Review of Books

After Flight | Ilija Trojanow, Ambika Athreya

The refugee is an object. A problem to be solved, a number, an expense. A full stop, never a comma. Since the refugee cannot be willed away, they must

Martin Filler on the golden age of department stores

The New York Review of Books

What Joys Lie in Store | Martin Filler

Can Printemps New York recapture the commercial sorcery of glamorous department stores like Wanamaker’s, Barney’s, and Bloomingdale’s?

“In a lily-white sport…Althea Gibson, a Black woman, was a whirlwind of energy and determination, shattering the color barrier at one marquee event after the next.” —Sasha Abramsky

The New York Review of Books

Ahead of the Game | Sasha Abramsky

Althea Gibson was a tall, strong, and exceptionally hard-hitting tennis player. Her serve was a rocket, her volleys forceful, aimed not at continui...

“Everyday language can actually convey cutting-edge physics concepts very well, if only we can let go of the everyday connotations that some terms carry with them.” —an interview with Sean M. Carroll

The New York Review of Books

Far Out | Sean M. Carroll, Willa Glickman

As scientists and researchers make sense of some of the major discoveries from the turn of the twenty-first century, “the present moment in the s...

A new exhibition pays “frank attention to the financial incentives that motivated the operators of ocean liners, railroads, and airlines to...use oysters, beef Wellington, kale salad, and martinis to edge out the competition.” —Lora Kelley

The New York Review of Books

‘A Moment of Pleasant Indecision’ | Lora Kelley

In the summer of 1957 a young woman named Shirley Kubik got a job attending to passengers on Trans World Airlines. After the company determined tha...

In 1978, an English librarian discovered “two strips of paper” which “proved to be fragments of an old letter. There was no clue as to who had written it,” Charles Nicholl writes, save for the name of its recipient: “Good Mrs. Shakspaire.”

The New York Review of Books

Who Is Mrs. Shakspaire? What Is She? | Charles Nicholl

On a summer’s day in 1978, Frederick Charles Morgan was at work as usual in the ancient library of Hereford Cathedral. He was a hundred years old...

Among the notorious Mitford sisters, “fascism was less an ideological belief than a catastrophic assertion of personality, a bid for attention in a family of extremophiles.” —Frances Wilson

The New York Review of Books

Tremendous Stickers | Frances Wilson

The Mitfords, a family of extremophiles, are characters that ultimately don’t translate to the screen.