Why We Read
August 8, 2019
Azar Nafisi— Reading is like Alice running after that white rabbit, because she is curious; she wants to know more about a talking rabbit. She is prepared to take the… READ MORE
Category: History
Examining the Secular Age
August 7, 2019
Nicholas Wolterstorff— Recently I dipped once again into Charles Taylor’s massive A Secular Age, and one of the themes he develops there led me to reflect on the implications of… READ MORE
What Happened to Mescaline?
August 6, 2019
Mike Jay— In the current psychedelic renaissance, the original psychedelic is conspicuous by its absence. Amid all the buzz around LSD, psilocybin, DMT, ketamine and MDMA, and their potential for… READ MORE
On Narcissistic Leaders and Personality Cults
July 31, 2019
David Brandenberger— Although the similarities between Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Rodrigo Duterte are often overstated, all these leaders are united by their cultivation of… READ MORE
Horse Thieves and the Bandit Tradition
July 30, 2019
Mark Galeotti— Periodic epidemics, crop failure and other disaster cannot compare with the harm that horse thieves bring to the countryside. The horse thief holds peasants in perpetual, uninterrupted fear…. READ MORE
Adventure Capitalism and the Frontier Question
July 26, 2019
Andrew Offenburger— In 1883, an academic and traveler named William Henry Bishop posed a question on many Americans’ minds. “What is a world to do,” he asked, “when it has… READ MORE
Dante’s Pioneering Poetry and Science
July 25, 2019
Tracy Daugherty— “At some deep level, poetry and physics are similar endeavors,” writes Mark A. Peterson, a mathematician and science historian. Both the poet and the scientist use the tools… READ MORE
African Americans and Africa
July 19, 2019
Nemata Amelia Ibitayo Blyden— My father, born in Sierra Leone, used to tell us stories about being a student at Lincoln University in the 1940s. A historically black college, Lincoln… READ MORE
A Time to Write and a Time to Resist
July 17, 2019
David G. Roskies— Writing, we are told, is a form of resistance. The act of writing is an assertion of one’s selfhood, one’s right to live, think and feel in… READ MORE
Israel and the Conundrums of the Left
July 16, 2019
Susie Linfield— Both the Democratic Party in the U.S. and the Labour Party in Britain are in a tizzy over issues relating to Israel and anti-Semitism. Stateside, Rep. Ilhan Omar’s… READ MORE
From 9/11 to 9/11: The Widening of the Atlantic