Interview Kyle Harper on Plagues upon the Earth October 06, 2021 Plagues upon the Earth is a monumental history of humans and their germs. Weaving together a grand narrative of global history with insights from cutting-edge genetics, Kyle Harper explains why humanity’s uniquely dangerous disease pool is rooted deep in our evolutionary past, and why its growth is accelerated by technological progress. Read More
Video Not Meant as Poems October 05, 2021 Rain in Plural is the much-anticipated fourth collection of poetry by Fiona Sze-Lorrain, who has been praised by The Rumpus as “a master of musicality and enlightening allusions.” Read More
Podcast Listen in: Ice Rivers October 05, 2021 The ice sheets and glaciers that cover one-tenth of Earth’s land surface are in grave peril. High in the Alps, Andes, and Himalaya, once-indomitable glaciers are retreating, even dying. Read More
Interview Book Club Pick: Very Important People October 04, 2021 Million-dollar birthday parties, megayachts on the French Riviera, and $40,000 bottles of champagne. In today’s New Gilded Age, the world’s moneyed classes have taken conspicuous consumption to new extremes. Read More
Essay A look inside City of Dreams October 03, 2021 On April 10, 1962, amid ceremony and celebration, Dodger Stadium, major league baseball’s modern showpiece, opened in Los Angeles, California. Read More
Interview Shelley Frisch on the work (and play) of translation September 30, 2021 Award-winning translator Shelley Frisch shares her thoughts about the principles that guide her work, rituals that she turns to as she settles in with a work, and what she enjoys most about translating texts. Read More
Essay The fall of Kabul and the new decolonization September 28, 2021 The collapse of the Western-backed regime in Afghanistan in August 2021, and the subsequent images of the chaotic retreat of the American-led forces from Kabul Airport—grandiosely named after the former President of a now-defunct regime, Hamid Karzai—fits easily into the photo album of contemporary history. Read More
Essay All stories are stories about food September 27, 2021 A confession: for many years I lived a double life—as a writer, anyway. I started as a scholar of the Renaissance and antiquity who loved to cook, to eat, and to taste wine; then, by various happy accidents, I began to receive requests that I actually write about cooking, eating, and tasting wine. Read More
Podcast Listen in: Twelve Caesars September 24, 2021 What does the face of power look like? Who gets commemorated in art and why? And how do we react to statues of politicians we deplore? Read More
Podcast Pedias: Beautiful, short books about big, important subjects September 22, 2021 In this podcast, Marshall Poe talks to Robert Kirk, the publisher of the Pedia book series. Encyclopedic in nature and miniature in form, these books explore the wonders of the natural world, from A to Z. Read More
Podcast Listen in: The Genetic Lottery September 22, 2021 In The Genetic Lottery, Kathryn Paige Harden introduces readers to the latest genetic science, dismantling dangerous ideas about racial superiority and challenging us to grapple with what equality really means in a world where people are born different. Read More
Interview Kathryn Paige Harden on The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality September 20, 2021 In recent years, scientists like Kathryn Paige Harden have shown that DNA makes us different, in our personalities and in our health—and in ways that matter for educational and economic success in our current society. Read More
Essay Galaxies, the expanding universe, and the Big Bang September 19, 2021 Stars are so far away, they appear as unresolved points of light, even through modern telescopes. But seventeenth-century astronomers noticed a number of other objects in the sky that were extended and often fuzzy looking. Read More
Podcast Ice Rivers: A Story of Glaciers, Wilderness, and Humanity September 16, 2021 A riveting blend of cutting-edge research and tales of encounters with polar bears and survival under the midnight sun, Ice Rivers is an unforgettable portrait of—and love letter to—our vanishing icy wildernesses. Read More
Essay The soft pipes September 16, 2021 As a philosopher who writes about love, I am sometimes asked what I love. I could answer in particulars: specific people, places, and objects. Read More
