Introduction

Since January 6, 2021, much has been written about insurrections, bringing a subject that was relatively unfamiliar to most Americans to the fore. As Lindsey Claire Smith, one contributor to this “Of Note” section, observes: “On January 6, 2021, many learned the meaning of the word insurrection for the first time.” Indeed, journalists, jurists, artists, and scholars, among others, have devoted themselves to parsing the insurrection on January 6—who were the insurrectionists? what did they want?—and to considering the actions of the insurrectionists on that day in the context of other insurrections in the Americas, Jamaica, and elsewhere. At first, little was known about who was at the Capitol insurrection and what they wanted, but at this point most of the participants have been identified and their crimes enumerated. To date, nearly half of the roughly two thousand people who stormed the Capitol have been arrested and charged with a...