The news of Gloria Steinem’s death on September 2, 2026, at 92, invited the familiar ritual of American remembrance. Obituaries saluted the journalist who became the most recognizable public face of second-wave feminism. Yet a serious account of Steinem’s life must begin where tributes often hesitate. Before she confronted senators, presidents, and the editors who...

For many Americans, Spain in 1898 represented a fading colonial power struggling to hold Cuba. For some Jewish immigrants, it also recalled the empire that expelled Jews in 1492 and became synonymous with centuries of religious persecution. Joseph Pulitzer, the Hungarian-born Jewish immigrant who came to America in 1864 and built the New York World...