Kennedy's  keen awareness of the power of appearances helped him (and the rest of us) get through the Cuban Missile Crisis without a nuclear war—and without seeming to yield to nuclear blackmail.

The Life & Art of James T. Farrell

Two recent books offer fresh views of the fateful action in Boston harbor on the night of December 16, 1773. What really happened at the Boston Tea Party?

After the Revolutionary War, loyalist Americans left for other parts of the British Empire. Liberty’s Exiles focuses on these 60,000 -- including 10 thousand free blacks who left, as well as the 15,000 slaves departing loyalists took with them.

A review of the late Ted Sorenson's 2008 memoir