When Music Became Therapy in Interwar France

In the Face of Uncertainty, Trauma, and Extreme Isolation, Musicians Turned to Their Art

In March of 2020 I found myself alone (except for my two cats) in a small bungalow in Bloomington, Indiana, trying and failing to distract myself from COVID-19. I was on an extended spring break from Indiana University Bloomington, designed to provide time to adjust to what would become the new normal of conducting all university business online. I spent those two weeks in a deep, doomscrolling-facilitated spiral. I worried about my high-risk parents, my friends all over the world in different levels of lockdown, and everyone dying of COVID. …

by Jillian C. Rogers | January 24, 2022

How a Charismatic Populist Destroyed Christmas

One Hundred Years Ago, Italian Nationalists Went to War With Their Own Country, Bringing the Border City of Fiume a ‘Christmas of Blood’

by Dominique Kirchner Reill | December 14, 2020

In 1920, in a small town outside Turin, Italy, 17-year-old Luigi De Michelis was everything his middle-class parents could have asked for. His teachers liked him, which was important to …

What We Don’t Understand About Fascism

Using the Word Incorrectly Oversimplifies History—And Won’t Help Us Address Our Current Political Crisis

by Victoria de Grazia | August 13, 2020

At the moment, fascism has to be the most sloppily used term in the American political vocabulary. If you think fascists are buffoonish, racist, misogynist despots, the people who support …

For the Female Phone Operators of World War I, a Woman’s Place Was on the Front Lines

By Making the World Safe for Democracy, the "Hello Girls" Boosted Suffrage Back Home

By Elizabeth Cobbs | June 1, 2017

In 1917, U.S. Secretary of War Newton Baker disliked the idea of female workers on Army bases so intensely that he didn’t even want to build toilets for them. …

How Deprivation and the Threat of Violence Made Sweden Equal

War and the Great Depression Spurred Its Embrace of the Welfare State

By Walter Scheidel | April 19, 2017

Sweden is almost universally regarded as a bastion of sensible people, temperate social policies, and steady, evenly distributed economic growth. So it surprises many to learn that the Scandinavian country …

When the President’s Best and Brightest Were Also the Richest

The Practice of Tapping the Moneyed Elite Began with WWI—and Was Surprisingly Scandal-Free

By Charles Rappleye | February 10, 2017

From our earliest days we Americans have embraced leaders from among the ranks of the nation’s moneyed elite. Voters set the tone when they chose George Washington, the wealthiest …

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