Hot Bench Summer: I’m Now the NYT’s American History Book Columnist & Other Stories

Plus: July 2 has range. What Really Failed Amelia Earhart. Maris Kreizman's new book.

1. The Robes are Restless: From Marshall to Mean Girl Originalists

Pretty exciting news: I’m now The New York Times’ American history books columnist. In the quarterly column, I’ll tackle a different corner of the republic’s saga, starting with the judiciary—because nothing says summer fun like judicial rollback!

The Supreme Court is out here treating precedent like a rental car, and the books I round up in this column help explain how we got here. From Brown to Dobbs, from Marshall to mean girl originalists, these authors don’t just decode decisions—they map the emotional, political, and constitutional wreckage they leave behind.

2. July 2nd Has Range

I tend to think of “This Day in History” is kind of a gimmick, but July 2 is begging for it: the Civil Rights Act was signed, Garfield was shot, Amelia vanished, and Thurgood Marshall was born—on the same day I debut a column about the judiciary?!

When the republic deals you a winning hand, you play it:

1776
The Declaration wasn’t adopted until the 4th, but the actual break happened today. The Continental Congress declared that the American colonies “are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.”

1863
The Battle of Gettysburg began.After three days of fighting over the republic’s soul, the Union won the field. The war for equality would keep being fought—in courtrooms.

1881
Charles J. Guiteau shot President James A. Garfield. The president survived the bullet, but not the doctors.

1908
Thurgood Marshall was born in Baltimore. He dismantled Jim Crow in the courts, then joined the bench himself.

1937
Amelia Earhart disappeared while attempting to fly around the world.

1961
Ernest Hemingway died by suicide in Ketchum, Idaho.

1964
Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. It outlawed segregation and redefined federal power—and remains the target of conservative legal backlash.

3. What Really Failed Amelia Earhart

In July 1937, Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific.

America did what it always does when someone slips the leash: mythologized the failure, minimized the system that failed her, and filed the rest under mystery.

She was 7,000 miles from home, flying a plane skeptics had called unsuitable, to a pinprick of land in open ocean, using radio equipment she barely understood. Her navigator couldn’t hear the Coast Guard; the Coast Guard couldn’t reach her. The direction-finding antenna—a last resort—was installed in the wrong place.

She didn’t vanish. She ran out of fuel. She missed an island the size of Central Park. She was failed by bad tools and worse planning.

But instead of reckoning with that—an ambitious woman sent aloft with the burdens of national expectation and subpar equipment—America went the way of Titanic, Challenger, and every other catastrophe it prefers to romanticize rather than understand. It called her legendary. Then it called her lost.

4. Happy Book Launch, Maris Kreizman!

On my way to Maris’ launch:

Front row at Maris Kreizman’s book launch with Books Are Magic owner and author Emma Straub:

Order Maris Kreizman’s Burn It All Down!

After the book party with, for some reason, an exotic west coast import:

See you soonish! In the meantime, you can find me on Instagram and, on occasion, Bluesky and Twitter. My books are at Bookshop, Amazon, and your local bookstore or library. If you’d like me to sign or personalize my books, purchase copies from Oblong Books.