One of my favorite stories from the long struggle for equality concerns the scientist Helen Hamilton Gardener. In 1889, she challenged the leading male exponent of female mental inferiority to examine a human brain and determine … Read the article
As the 1800 presidential election neared, Americans braced themselves. The Federalists, who dominated the presidency and both chambers of Congress, had become convinced that the Republicans, who functioned as the emerging opposition party, … Read the article
The fifth and final excerpt from Revolutionary Brothers takes place in Paris in 1789, as Thomas Jefferson witnesses the civil unrest marking the beginning of the French Revolution.… Read the article
In the first of five excerpts from Revolutionary Brothers, Tom Chaffin chronicles Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette as they plan a Virginia campaign in 1781. … Read the article
Thomas Jefferson’s influence on American political history outstrips that of any other figure. Only Franklin Roosevelt rivaled President Jefferson’s dominance of the federal government, and Jefferson was more than the supreme politician of the revolutionary … Read the article
Thomas Jefferson’s name is most commonly associated in American popular culture with what we now call “democracy,” which Jefferson’s friend and collaborator James Madison called “republicanism”: government by elected officials. Abundant evidence supports that Jefferson … Read the article
In September 1945, hundreds of thousands of people jammed the French-looking boulevards and streets of downtown Hanoi. They had traveled in oppressive heat from distant villages for the great day. Schools and offices were closed. Jubilant peasants … Read the article