USA

Misfit, Old West villain or tragic hero of the O.K. Corral: who was the real Doc Holliday?

In A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America, Richard Slotkin attempts to untangle the stories that the US tells itself about race, colonialism and the Civil War. Is it a lost cause?

American democracy has been haunted by the spectre of a Caesar-type figure since the birth of the republic. Have such fears ever been justified?

In 1874 a choir of African American singers concluded a successful tour of Britain, singing songs that confronted American racism. Victorian audiences had never heard music like it.

America’s southern states were once strongholds for the Democratic Party. In 1952, Eisenhower decided to win them over.

US law requires a stay of execution for pregnant women on death row. In practice, however, this once only applied to mothers considered ‘good enough’.

A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic by Francis D. Cogliano explores a relationship more complex than that of comrades turned rivals.

Liberty’s Grid: A Founding Father, a Mathematical Dreamland, and the Shaping of America by Amir Alexander explains how the grid system put the United States on the map.

The decision to make Native Americans citizens of the United States was not straightforwardly progressive.

Columbine marked the beginning of a new era of high-profile mass shootings in the US. Was the attack the inevitable outcome of lax controls and a culture of gun glorification?