The curse of long-ruling autocrats January 18, 2023 In October 2022, during the 20th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping was “reelected” as the party’s chairman, paving his way for a third term as China’s top political leader. Read More
An excerpt from The Aesthetic Cold War January 17, 2023 In “Africa and Her Writers,” a feisty Chinua Achebe begins by proclaiming, “Art for art’s sake is just another piece of deodorized dog shit.” The joke, of course, comes at high modernism’s expense, and he was neither the first nor the last figure from decolonizing regions of the world to rail against writing for a privileged few. Read More
On the misuse of legacy: The Struggle for the People’s King January 14, 2023 On a humid day in late August 2010, the right-wing Tea Party activist and Fox News television host Glenn Beck held a rally to “Restore Honor” at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Read More
Flipping failure January 09, 2023 “Failing big” has been much in the news—it’s part of an exciting strategy that also includes “move fast and break things” and “no risk, no reward!” But what about failing small? Read More
Lessons from the past about the future of capitalism January 02, 2023 The capitalist economic system has delivered wealth to the world population on an unprecedented scale. At the same time, many people feel unhappy about how little the economy does for them. Read More
Daisy Hay on Dinner with Joseph Johnson January 01, 2023 Joseph Johnson was an extraordinary man, who brought together an extraordinary range of people. But Dinner with Joseph Johnson is not straightforwardly a biography of him—or even a book about him. Read More
What Hollywood gets wrong (and right) about neuroscience December 23, 2022 Become a martial arts expert by uploading the ability to fight directly to your brain. Build a new body and insert the mind of a lost loved one into this newly created person. Read More
In dialogue: Perspectives on migration December 14, 2022 Few phenomena sway global politics today as does migration. Economic volatility, violence-laden crises, and climate change produce millions of migrants annually and collectively threaten to displace much of the world’s population in the coming century. Read More
Why prove it? December 13, 2022 Years ago, a student in an introductory math class asked me: “Why do you prove everything; why don’t you just tell us?” Ever since, I have pondered that question. Read More
Parasites and the interconnected biosphere December 13, 2022 One of the most fascinating things that a young person can experience in the complex realm of biology is the discovery of an animal living inside another animal. The questions that arise when these kinds of animals are encountered for the first time are innumerable and, if answered carefully, may lead to even more questions and, hopefully, more answers. Read More
Galápagos birds: A lot more than meets the eye December 12, 2022 As a child growing up in the then-remote Galapagos Islands, the birds that surrounded my island home—unafraid as they were—fascinated me. Read More
Why going to the Moon still matters December 12, 2022 The Moon is back on the space agenda. NASA’s Apollo project succeeded half a century ago in placing the first men on the Moon. We haven’t been back since 1972, but there is now great interest in returning. Read More
Live longer by living better, says Seneca December 05, 2022 Because we can't truly conceive of an endpoint to life, we give to our time far less value than we should, squandering it on useless pursuits or frivolities. Read More
Elena Llaudet and Kosuke Imai on Data Analysis for Social Science November 28, 2022 Data Analysis for Social Science teaches step-by-step how to analyze data with the free and popular statistical program R and covers the fundamentals of survey research, predictive models, and causal inference. Read More
A time for utopias November 21, 2022 “Generation Dread,” “The World as We Knew It,” or “Global Burning.” This is just a small sample of book titles from this year that deal with global warming and its environmental, socio-economic, political, and cultural consequences. Read More