Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Arts & Culture

Smithsonian magazine's picks for the best books about travel of 2025 include Adventures in the Louvre, On the Hippie Trail and Things Become Other Things.

The Best Books of 2025

The Ten Best Books About Travel of 2025

These top titles of the year conveniently bring the world and its many perspectives to us

In our efforts to increase and diffuse knowledge, we highly recommend these titles this year.

The Best Books of 2025

The Best Books of 2025

Whether you’re doing some holiday shopping or looking for your own next read, consider our thoughtfully curated lists.

Smithsonian magazine's picks for best photography books of 2025 include Birds of a Feather, Blue Sun and Trembling Earth.

The Best Books of 2025

The Ten Best Photography Books of 2025

Our favorite titles this year invite readers to take in the beauty of nature and our cultural rituals

Jane Austen's second novel, Pride and Prejudice, was published on January 28, 1813.

Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ Was Initially Rejected by a Publisher. It Later Became One of the World’s Most Beloved Novels

The British author wrote six novels, but it’s her second published book that has resonated the most in the 250 years since her birth in 1775

The shadows of early morning visitors are cast on the base of the Abraham Lincoln statue at his memorial on the National Mall. 

Smithsonian Photo Contest Galleries

These 15 Photographs Capture What It’s Like to Walk Through Wonderful, Historic Washington, D.C.

Enjoy this selection of images of the nation’s capital from the Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest

A bust of Plato in the Long Room at Trinity College Dublin

Coastal Cities of Europe

Go Behind the Scenes at an Iconic Irish Library as Staff Move 700,000 Historical Treasures Into Storage

Trinity College Dublin’s Old Library will close for restoration and construction in 2027. What does that mean for the medieval manuscripts and books housed there?

For some, these apples, pears and walnuts look like objects to be captured on canvas and turned into a work of art. For others, they’re snacks.

Fill Your Visual Cornucopia With These 15 Satisfying Photos of Favorite Fall Fruits

Enjoy this collection of images from the Smithsonian Magazine photo contest just in time for Thanksgiving

Smithsonian magazine's picks for the best books about food of 2025 include Good Things, Cellar Rat and We Are Eating the Earth.

The Best Books of 2025

The Ten Best Books About Food of 2025

From cookbooks to memoirs, these new titles will feed your hunger and leave you satisfied

Smithsonian magazine's picks for the best history books of 2025 include We the People, The Stolen Crown and Medicine River.

The Best Books of 2025

The Ten Best History Books of 2025

Our favorite titles of the year resurrect overlooked histories and examine how the United States ended up where it is today

Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes in director Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, a Focus Features release that arrives in theaters on November 26.

Based on a True Story

The Real History Behind ‘Hamnet’ and the Tragically Short Life of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway’s Only Son

A film adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley as the Bard and his wife, imagines the lives of the Shakespeare family in fantastical and heartbreaking fashion

Demonstrators at an anti-Vietnam War protest held at Bronx Science High School in New York in April 1968

Untold Stories of American History

Newly Declassified Records Suggest Parents Collaborated With the FBI to Spy on Their Rebellious Teens During the 1960s

As high school students across the U.S. embraced political activism, adults turned to the authorities to shield their sons and daughters from radical influences

New York City, 1984. Advertising is a recurring theme in Friedlander’s photography, and no figure appears more often in store windows than Old St. Nick. 

A Famed Street Photographer Chronicled What Christmas Looks Like Across America Over the Course of Decades

Lee Friedlander’s new book, “Christmas,” collects his work from all over the country on the topic of our sentimental and materialistic connection to the holiday

None

An Industrious Grocer in the 1930s Wanted to Make It Easier for His Customers to Buy More. They Just Needed a Push

There was a time when shoppers could buy only as much as they could carry. And as ubiquitous as shopping carts are today, it initially took some convincing to use them

The Green Dragon Tavern, a coffeehouse in Boston that served as a meeting place for the Sons of Liberty

America's 250th Anniversary

In Colonial America, Patriots Flocked to Coffeehouses to Debate Politics and Sow the Seeds of Revolution

These storied establishments served up more than just hot drinks. They acted as intellectual hubs and meeting places for dissenters

Legendary actor Toshiro Mifune, defiant, in a 1954 French poster for Seven Samurai.

Even If You’ve Never Seen ‘Seven Samurai,’ You’ve Certainly Seen Movies Influenced by It

Director Akira Kurosawa broke all the rules—and budgets—of Japanese filmmaking with his 1954 classic. But the final product influenced a generation of directors

A John Trumbull painting of the death of General Hugh Mercer at the Battle of Princeton in 1777

America's 250th Anniversary

Ken Burns Says His New Documentary Forced Him to Revisit Everything He Thought He Knew About the American Revolution

Ahead of the PBS production’s premiere, the legendary filmmaker and co-director Sarah Botstein share insights on their research process and the surprising, long-overlooked stories featured in the six-part series

The Edmund Fitzgerald measured 729 feet long and had a gross tonnage of 13,632.

Nobody Knows What Sank the ‘Edmund Fitzgerald.’ But Its Doomed Final Voyage Will Always Be America’s Defining Shipwreck

Fifty years after the freighter disappeared into the depths of Lake Superior, the mystery of its demise—and the mournful ballad it inspired—still haunt the popular imagination

For more than four decades, the Athabascan Fiddle Festival has filled community halls in Fairbanks with a sound that is both global and distinctly Native.

How Old-Time Fiddle Music Took Root in Indigenous Alaska

In Fairbanks, fiddling thrives—bridging cultures, sustaining traditions and filling the dance floor with life

Made with more than 2,000 hand-blown glass flowers, artist Dale Chihuly created Fiori di Como, this colorful ceiling of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. 

Smithsonian Photo Contest Galleries

These 15 Gorgeous Photographs Capture the Beautiful Art of Blown and Stained Glass

From cathedrals to train stations to museums, these masterful displays showcase the remarkable talent that goes into creating the fragile art form

Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring in Nuremberg, a new film written and directed by James Vanderbilt

Based on a True Story

The True Story Behind ‘Nuremberg,’ a WWII Drama About Hermann Göring’s Cat-and-Mouse Game With an American Psychiatrist

Starring Russell Crowe as the high-ranking Nazi and Rami Malek as Army officer Douglas M. Kelley, the film dramatizes the intense dynamic between its central characters during the Nuremberg trials

Page 5 of 368