When it was founded in 1824, the Athen?um broke the mold. Unlike in other preeminent clubs, its members were chosen on the basis of their achievements rather than on their background or political affiliation. Public rather than private life dominated...

The Bhutto family has long been one of the most ambitious and powerful in Pakistan. But politics has cost the Bhuttos dear. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, widely regarded as the most talented politician in the country's history, was removed from power in 1977...

Few have ever enjoyed the degree of foreign-policy influence and versatility that Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. did – in the postwar era, perhaps only George Marshall, Henry Kissinger, and James Baker. Lodge, however, had the distinction of wielding that inf...

When Allied fighters were trapped behind enemy lines, one branch of military intelligence helped them escape: MI9. The organization set up clandestine routes that zig-zagged across Nazi-occupied Europe, enabling soldiers and airmen to make their way...

In 1969, the Chicago Seven were charged with intent to "incite, organize, promote, and encourage" antiwar riots during the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The defendants included major figures of the antiwar and racial justice...

In 1877, the American Humane Society was formed as the national organization for animal and child protection. Thirty years later, there were 354 anticruelty organizations chartered in the United States, nearly 200 of which were similarly invested in...

Intellectuals "have been both rallying points and railed against in American politics, vessels of hope and targets of scorn", writes Michael J. Brown as he invigorates a recurrent debate in American life: are intellectual public figures essential voi...

Anyone interested in the rise of American corporate capitalism should look to the streets of Baltimore. There, in 1827, citizens launched a bold new venture: a "rail-road" that would link their city with the fertile Ohio River Valley. They dubbed thi...

Naguib Mahfouz, the Arab world's only Nobel literature laureate, is best known internationally for his short stories and novels, including The Cairo Trilogy. But in Egypt he was equally familiar to newspaper readers for the column he wrote for many y...

This book examines the history of early secret police forces in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War. Molly Pucci delves into the ways their origins diverged from the original Soviet model based on differi...