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The recent election, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and global financial crunch all feel historic. Simon Schama looks to the past for some context in his new book, The American Future, and concludes little of it is really new.

A new study looks at one of the most prolific pathogens in human history — the plague.

Oxford professor Ben Ansell says we are witnessing a battle between nationalism and liberalism that will write our own time indelibly into the history books of tomorrow.

The modern Bible is the product of translations and interpretations that span centuries. But a true understanding of its meaning should take into account its origins in Jewish culture, according to biblical scholar Marc Zvi Brettler, author of How to Read the Bible.

In a vast warehouse off an undistinguished highway in Maryland, storage cartons and suitcases hold the treasures of the as-yet-unbuilt National Museum of African-American History and Culture.

NPR's Michel Martin speaks with historian Timothy Naftali about the history of impeachment in America.

Men and women have long made music to accompany their labor, and musician Ted Gioia says that work songs are more than a musical genre, they're a transformational tool. The author of the new book Work Songs, shares some of his favorites with us.

Vincent Virga's Cartographia is a rare collection of 250 color maps and illustrations drawn from the world's largest cartographic collection at the Library of Congress. The collection spans everything from maps of ancient Mesopotamia, to maps of the human genome.

A group of passionate bartenders from all over America are in the process of establishing the world's first museum devoted exclusively to high balls, low balls, fizzes and other mixed drinks. Co-founder Dale DeGroff describes the Museum of the American Cocktail.

She's already one of the most imaginative saxophone players in jazz today. But Roberts' new album challenges even that reputation: It's a musical patchwork spanning decades of history and memory in the lives of 18th-century Louisiana "free people of color."