At Christmas, 1939, a few months into the new World War, London bookshops were very busy. The war was bringing in a public eager to learn about weapons, planes, and the nature of the country that was ...

This is "perhaps the most infamous and consequential banned book of all time," the First Amendment Museum says in its overview on the topic. Published in 1852 — just under a decade before the outbreak ...

The New English Canaan by Thomas Morton criticized the Puritan government in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Illustration by Emily Lankiewicz The American Library Association reports that 2022 saw more ...

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, “The Vicomtesse de Vaudreuil” (1785) Oil on panel; 83.2 x 64.8 cm (32 3/4 x 25 1/2 in.) Johannes Vermeer had a serious thing for books. As it turns out, so did Edward ...

Everyone should study history, and here are 20 books I think everyone should read. They are expressly not the “best” history books ever written: no one can possibly have read the tens of thousands in ...

As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding in July 2026, the nation must confront a stark reality: Americans are more polarized than they’ve been in decades. Among the key ...

Mark Twain. Harriet Beecher Stowe. William Shakespeare. These names share something more than a legacy of classic literature and a place on school curriculums: They’re just some of the many authors ...

Nearly a century ago, the historian Carter G. Woodson started a movement to teach Black history in America’s schools. First called Negro History Week and now Black History Month, it has been an oasis ...

Books “are disappearing” from K-12 classrooms and libraries across the country in an “unprecedented flood.” After reaching a record high in the 2021-22 school year, book bans increased another 33 ...

Books are disappearing from the shelves of America's schools. Books about gay and lesbian characters. Books about Black and Latino people, and books about Jewish and Muslim people. Books that are ...