IN THE FALL OF 2019, DURING DONALD TRUMP’S FIRST impeachment hearing, a historian of 19th-century America by the name of Heather Cox Richardson began to publish essays summarizing the day’s political news on her Facebook page. Her calm, clear, and matter-of-fact voice offered readers a daily digest that managed to sidestep the shrill hysteria of Twitter and the confusing blow-by-blow of press accounts. As she continued her readings of current events, she discovered that there was a tremendous market for just such an approach

Over the dramatic course of 2020 and 2021—from Covid to the election to the events of January 6—Richardson’s straightforward analysis won her a vast readership. She soon began to publish her reports as a Substack newsletter under the title Letters From an American, borrowed from the famous Revolutionary-era rhapsodies of Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, whose Letters From an American Farmer offered a plainspoken celebration of American democracy. The newsletter went on to amass one of Substack’s largest audiences. With about 1.3 million people reading each missive, Richardson had become a true history star.

Richardson’s popularity is notable in itself. Many of the historians of earlier generations who rose to popular acclaim have been august personages, usually male, declaiming from on high. Richardson, by contrast, is a woman; her voice is sincere, humble, approachable, and jargon-free. She knows a lot about American history, but she doesn’t club you over the