History

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  • Rushdie the romantic

    In Salman Rushdie's satisfying fairy tale "The Enchantress of Florence," magic and history entwine -- and so do a middle-aged emperor and a sexy princess.
    By Laura Miller June 13, 2008

  • Kiss my ass

    For years America has desperately tried to outlaw sodomy and other sex acts like fellatio and cunnilingus. What are we so scared of?
    By Louis Bayard June 12, 2008

  • The China syndrome

    Eccentric scholar Joseph Needham devoted his life to documenting the brilliant innovations of Chinese civilization -- and the mystery of why the West eclipsed it.
    By Andrew Leonard May 19, 2008

  • Is everything we know about American history wrong?

    Forget the Pilgrims. America's roots are older and more twisted, what Tony Horwitz calls a "primordial slime of false starts and mutations."
    By Louis Bayard May 9, 2008

  • Flagging America's racial divide

    An infamous 1976 photo captured a violent encounter between white Bostonians and a black lawyer during an anti-busing rally. A new book explains why this image continues to haunt and define us.
    By Louis Bayard April 28, 2008

  • Through a bong, darkly

    A new book argues that the '60s counterculture achieved nothing of lasting importance. So why does the era continue to fascinate us?
    By Gary Kamiya April 9, 2008

  • A 1930s history lesson

    Protectionism on the rise, bickering about exchange rates, the debilitating costs of war -- where have we heard this story before?
    By Andrew Leonard March 17, 2008

  • War goes graphic

    "Age of Bronze," a masterly graphic novel series about the Trojan War, is fit for the gods.
    By Douglas Wolk February 21, 2008

  • America closes the book on intelligence

    Our country is barely smarter than a fifth grader -- no wonder it's drowning in religious fundamentalism and political ideologues on both sides, argues Susan Jacoby.
    By Laura Miller February 15, 2008

  • The big secret about secret societies

    Step right up, folks, and read the one true guide to Western and Eastern esoteric societies from the Freemasons to the Rosicrucians. Relics, totems and secret handshakes revealed!
    By Laura Miller January 28, 2008

  • Trapped in the grid

    Like electricity, the Web is everywhere and changes everything, says Nicholas Carr. But the one thing it can't deliver is freedom.
    By Scott Rosenberg January 24, 2008

  • Dirty, sexy opera

    In Germany, Wagner is worshiped like a god. His scheming, squabbling descendants are another story.
    By Laura Miller January 15, 2008

  • Everything you know about absinthe is wrong

    Banned for a century for inspiring madness and murder, absinthe is legal again. So pour yourself a glass and get to know the real Green Fairy.
    By Sarah Hepola December 21, 2007

  • America's first Me Generation

    Did Emerson and the American transcendentalists transform society or merely sow the seeds of American individualism?
    By Laura Miller December 19, 2007

  • War and peace and trade

    A history of world trade over the last millennium in one sentence.
    By Andrew Leonard December 14, 2007

  • Salon Book Awards 2007

    From an imaginary history of Alaskan Jews to a compelling glimpse of the CIA, we pick the 10 most pleasurable reading experiences of the year.
    By Laura Miller December 12, 2007

  • The filthy, stinking truth

    The messy history of cleanliness, and why our obsession with dirt may be making us sick.
    By Katharine Mieszkowski November 30, 2007

  • American empire, going, going ...

    Great empires were extraordinarily pluralistic, argues Amy Chua, until they frayed into xenophobia and decline. Can the U.S. steer another course?
    By Andrew O'Hehir November 19, 2007

  • For the birds?

    While bird-watching is more popular than ever, competitive "listers" may not see how birds live, or that their habitat is disappearing.
    By Meera Subramanian November 16, 2007

  • Arthur M. Schlesinger's playbill for the American century

    His personal journals unveil the glory and corruption of postwar presidents with emotional truth and power. Alas, the age of the great historian is over.
    By Sidney Blumenthal October 18, 2007

  • Divine politics

    In "The Stillborn God," a history of the separation of church and state, Mark Lilla urges the West to remember the religious fanaticism in its past -- or risk its return.
    By Laura Miller September 24, 2007

  • The Mormons are coming

    Long before Mitt Romney and "Big Love," Mormons were demonized as polygamists, prudes and vampires. But Mormonism just may be the first major world faith since Islam.
    By Andrew O'Hehir September 20, 2007

  • Bush's stairway to paradise

    Hoping that history will somehow vindicate him, the president has entered a phase of decadent perversity.
    By Sidney Blumenthal September 20, 2007

  • America's great white hope

    Whales play a romantic role in our national mythology, but they also helped transform a young colony into a world power.
    By Ben Cosgrove August 22, 2007

  • Blood and bile and phlegm, oh my!

    Before germ theory, humoral medicine -- based on magical thinking and ignorant of human anatomy -- dominated for 2,000 years. So why are today's doctors guided by some surprisingly similar principles?
    By Andrew O'Hehir August 8, 2007
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