History worth reading.

We're creating a new home to celebrate nonfiction history books. Book reviews, interviews, craft essays, publishing news, and more.

A New Debs For a New Era
Book Reviews

A New Debs For a New Era

This New Biography Contextualizes America’s Socialist Past Within Its New Socialist Moment

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Q & A with writer and coach Helen Betya Rubinstein
Craft Essays

Q & A with writer and coach Helen Betya Rubinstein

You might not agree with every take on writing and education in her provocative new craft book, but she'll certainly make you think

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Book Reviews

Craft Essays

Q & A with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Marcia Chatelain

Q & A with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Marcia Chatelain

Podcast Episodes

Soyica Diggs Colbert Writes the History of Icons Through Their Friendships

Soyica Diggs Colbert Writes the History of Icons Through Their Friendships

Recent Posts

A New Debs For a New Era

A New Debs For a New Era

This New Biography Contextualizes America’s Socialist Past Within Its New Socialist Moment

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Durba Mitra On Doing Feminist History Now

Durba Mitra On Doing Feminist History Now

Episode 120 of the Drafting the Past podcast

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Q & A with writer and coach Helen Betya Rubinstein

Q & A with writer and coach Helen Betya Rubinstein

You might not agree with every take on writing and education in her provocative new craft book, but she'll certainly make you think

—
10 New Books We Want to Read This November

10 New Books We Want to Read This November

Snails, telephones, musical theater, and other subjects that caught our attention

An Incomplete Guide to the Female Monster

An Incomplete Guide to the Female Monster

A new but limited history of the women who have always terrified men

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Soyica Diggs Colbert Writes the History of Icons Through Their Friendships

Soyica Diggs Colbert Writes the History of Icons Through Their Friendships

Episode 119 of the Drafting the Past podcast with the author of Freedom's Gate

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Getting Through Getting Stuck

Getting Through Getting Stuck

Struggling to write that history project? One of these ideas might help

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Mining the Past for New Material

Mining the Past for New Material

A new book from a prolific popular historian takes readers to the gold camps of California, but not much farther

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Shane White Is An Avowed Completist

Shane White Is An Avowed Completist

Episode 118 of the Drafting the Past podcast

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Q & A with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Marcia Chatelain

Q & A with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Marcia Chatelain

“What I started to realize is that, if I'm granted the space to actually write the things that I want to write, then I need to start thinking of myself as a writer, as someone who prioritizes writing over other things, someone who feels like I can take risks in my writing.”

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Subscribe to Drafting the Past

Get new book reviews, craft essays, author Q & As, and more delivered to your inbox.