us history

Ian Explains: The US Supreme Court's history of political influence

Ian Explains: The US Supreme Court's history of political influence

Has the Supreme Court become too politicized? American confidence in the Supreme Court is at an all-time low. Just 25% of US adults have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in court, a low in Gallup’s 50 years of polling. This week on Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer looks back at the history of SCOTUS and the idea that justices are supposed to be impartial “umpires” that stay above the fray of politics.

Explaining the long history of US debt (& which other countries are saddled with debt)

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Explaining the long history of US debt (& which other countries are saddled with debt)

Sovereign debt is, simply put, the money a country owes to its creditors around the world. Ian Bremmer explains a few more fun facts about debt on GZERO World.

The 1619 Project’s creator Nikole Hannah-Jones discusses its cultural impact

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The 1619 Project’s creator Nikole Hannah-Jones discusses its cultural impact

Today, we take a fresh look at US history—and the role Black people have played in it—with a woman who is reshaping that national conversation. When Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones published the “1619 Project” in 2019, not even she could have predicted its cultural impact. It’s hard to think of another piece of modern journalism that has garnered such praise while also sparking such intense outrage. Now, her new book, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, expands upon her initial work. She joins Ian Bremmer for an in-depth look at how she’s trying to reshape US history, and the backlash it has caused.

Nikole Hannah-Jones: America chose slavery — and benefited from it

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Nikole Hannah-Jones: America chose slavery — and benefited from it

Many people today still think US slavery was only prevalent in the South. They are wrong, says Nikole Hannah-Jones. All 13 colonies had slaves upon America's independence. It's not just that the Founding Fathers were slave-owners, which we all know. Slave labor, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist points out, powered the US Industrial Revolution by producing cheap cotton for textiles.

Why do Black people feel "erased" from American history?

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Why do Black people feel "erased" from American history?

Growing up, New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones only learned a little about the plight of Black people in America during Black History Month. The Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project studied some usual suspects such as Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass, and then discussed slavery to cover the Civil War. But then Black people like herself, she says, vanish from the narrative until the civil rights movement.