Antoinette Burton

Burton portrait-edited
Author Bio

Antoinette Burton is professor of history at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is an alumna of the Op Ed Project.

August 4, 2026

Warrior men and lessons for the 250th

Despite this summer’s celebrations of the 250th, US democracy looks fragile to some. But there are signs everywhere that what is actually insecure is the ongoing right-wing quest to control the levers of power. As…

June 6, 2026

Frank Sinatra 2026: the golden age of the protection racket

If you think that the biggest news in the summer of 2026 is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, think again. The truest sign of the zeitgeist is not the commemoration of the…

December 20, 2025

Up, Periscope: The Future of the Humanities in the AI-verse

Educators are hearing a lot these days about why the humanities need AI. And not surprisingly, many of thosearguments sound like they come straight out of ChatGPT. There are pragmatic arguments about why humanities educators…

July 29, 2025

No End to American Innocence

“You don’t scare me, I’m a historian.” There was a time when I not only fully embraced that sentiment, I also helped to popularize among colleagues, generating bumper stickers as giveaways at departmental award ceremonies…