North America

A new generation in Cuba, witness to decades of rising racial and economic inequality, demand food, services, and a freer life. Three Weatherhead Center scholars describe the layers of repression that led to the current state of unrest in Cuba. By Erin...

Economist Nathan Nunn and his team measure the long-term impacts of the Tulsa massacre on Black communities in the US and find a pattern that resonates with an earlier analysis of the transatlantic slave trade, where violence begets long-term economic and...

To address the widening skills gap in the US workforce, two Harvard researchers call for a new social contract with the American worker, taking lessons from other industrialized democracies. By Nick Psyhogeos and Nataliya Langburd Wright Cult films like...

Historian Vincent Brown reflects on the long-term societal impact of being in a constant state of war. By Michelle Nicholasen This is the second of a two-part interview with historian Vincent Brown about US racial inequities and the legacies of the...

Looking back at a tumultuous year, Visiting Fellow Georgette Ledgister shows how the social and political unrest in the US reverberated in Africa in 2020. By Georgette I. Mulunda Ledgister It was one of the most bizarre memes I had seen all year, and...

Historian Vincent Brown discusses the centuries-long impact of the slave trade and its links to today’s racial inequities. By Michelle Nicholasen This is the first of a two-part interview with Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Vincent Brown about his...

There has never been a more critical time to pull nations together. The next president must decide what kinds of partnerships the US will form with foreign leaders in an increasingly polarized world. By Michelle Nicholasen Foreign policy is a study in...

The pandemic has shaken the island territory of Guam, creating insecurity not seen since World War II. Graduate Student Affiliate Kristin Oberiano explains how the US’s imperial relationship with Guam has made its citizens uniquely vulnerable to infection...

Historian Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey tells the story of the African migrants who circulated between the Caribbean and the North America in the twentieth century, and how a subset of them built a transnational life, and racial solidarity, along the US...

Amid the outpouring of ten-year retrospectives on the economic crisis of 2008, historian Charles Bartlett asks what a crisis that occurred almost 2000 years ago can tell us about the enduring relationships between legislative agendas, financial crises...