The AuguroSubscribe
Section

History

The past that shapes the present

The Historical Pattern of Institutional Delegitimation — and Where We Are in It
Lead Story

The Historical Pattern of Institutional Delegitimation — and Where We Are in It

Every major democratic trust collapse follows a recognizable pattern. We are 8-12 years into a cycle that historically runs 20-25 years — and the historical record distinguishes renewal from authoritarian consolidation.

Miles ThorntonMarch 18, 2026
The Weimar Comparison Is No Longer a Metaphor
History

The Weimar Comparison Is No Longer a Metaphor

Political scientists have moved from invoking Weimar Germany as a rhetorical warning to formalizing it as an analytical framework for measuring democratic legitimacy collapse. The distance between metaphor and model is the distance between alarm and diagnosis.

William Kessler8 min
The American Century Is Over. What Comes Next?
History

The American Century Is Over. What Comes Next?

Henry Luce's vision of American global supremacy lasted about seventy-five years. Its end is not a failure — but pretending it hasn't ended is.

Sophie Laurent12 min
The Weimar Warning Has Limits
History

The Weimar Warning Has Limits

Historians and commentators keep reaching for 1930s Germany to explain the present. The analogy is partly useful and partly a way of avoiding the specific analysis the present requires.

Cara Novak11 min
The Cold War We Forgot
History

The Cold War We Forgot

Thirty years after its end, the Cold War's lessons have been largely misread. The errors have consequences for how we think about the new competition with China.

Priya Nair12 min
The Internet Revolution We Misread
History

The Internet Revolution We Misread

We predicted the internet would bring democracy, abundance, and connection. It brought all three and also their opposites. Understanding what we got wrong helps explain what comes next.

Cara Novak12 min
What the 1970s Inflation Actually Teaches Us
History

What the 1970s Inflation Actually Teaches Us

Every episode of rising prices invites comparison to the 1970s. Understanding what actually happened then — and why — is more complicated than the political memory admits.

Marcus Webb13 min