When the far-right Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater ran for the American presidency in 1964, he never even pretended to woo voters in the political center. “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” declared Goldwater in his speech accepting the Republican Party’s ...read more

H. Ross Perot didn’t win the 1992 presidential election. He didn’t even capture a single Electoral College vote. Nonetheless, the Texan billionaire’s outsider bid for the American presidency transformed the political and electoral landscape, in both the short and longer term. By ...read more

How crucial were the French to helping colonists win the American Revolution? An iconic oil painting of the British surrender at Yorktown, now hanging in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, perfectly captures the partnership. As the grim, resigned British general at the picture’s center ...read more