John A. Cowgill 
Why Did Europeans Begin Exploring the World? During the late Middle Ages and the early years of the Renaissance, something remarkable began to happen in Europe. Sailors, merchants, and kings started sending ships far beyond the familiar waters of the Mediterranean Sea. These explorers crossed dangerous oceans, sailed along unknown coasts, and searched for new … Read more
If you had traveled across eastern North America long before Europeans arrived, you would have entered a landscape very different from the open grasslands of the Great Plains or the deserts of the Southwest. Much of the eastern part of the continent was covered by dense forests, crossed by winding rivers and dotted with lakes. … Read more
When people think of great ancient civilizations, their minds often travel to places like Egypt, Greece, or the Maya cities of Central America. Far fewer realize that complex societies also flourished in North America long before Europeans arrived. One of the most impressive of these was the Mississippian civilization, a network of agricultural societies that … Read more
Stretching across the center of North America is a vast region of open grassland known as the Great Plains. This enormous landscape begins in present-day Texas and extends northward through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, reaching into the Canadian prairies. At first glance, the Plains might seem empty. Trees are scarce in many places, … Read more
Long before Europeans arrived in North America, the continent was home to a rich variety of cultures, languages, and political systems. Among the most remarkable of these societies was the Iroquois Confederation, a powerful alliance of Native nations that emerged in the woodlands of what is now the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. Known … Read more
On a gray morning in May 1618, a small group of angry noblemen climbed the stairs of a castle in Prague. They were not generals, and they did not command armies. They carried no grand strategy for Europe, no vision of a continent remade by war. What they carried instead was a grievance—deep, specific, and … Read more
1618: A Window Opens, a Continent Slides Toward War The war begins not with armies, but with an argument over rights. In Prague, Protestant nobles fear that the Catholic Habsburg ruler of Bohemia intends to roll back the religious freedoms guaranteed to them. Their response is dramatic and symbolic: two imperial officials are thrown from … Read more
Never officially declared, never formally fought, and yet the Cold War may have been the most culturally productive conflict in modern history. No trenches. No mass mobilization. Instead, secrets. Files. Dead drops. Whispered betrayals in cafés and bureaucratic offices. And from those shadows emerged one of the most enduring bodies of entertainment ever produced. Espionage … Read more
A review of a classic history text and its author, Esther Forbes Few figures in American history are as instantly recognizable—and as poorly understood—as Paul Revere. Reduced in popular memory to a single dramatic night, he often appears less as a historical person than as a patriotic symbol. Esther Forbes’s Paul Revere and the World … Read more
History is not merely a record of dates, battles, and political transitions. At its best, it is a conversation across generations—a way of entering the minds of people who lived in radically different circumstances yet wrestled with questions that remain deeply familiar. Why do societies rise and fall? What gives life meaning in the face … Read more
