Land Tenure and Inequality
June 8, 2020
James C. Scott— A hypothetical case of customary land tenure practices may help demonstrate how difficult it is to assimilate such practices to the barebones schema of a modern cadastral… READ MORE
Category: Social Science
Books on the History of Race Relations
June 5, 2020
We have all heard the news, read the stories, watched the footage—America has reached a crossroads on racial injustice. The path forward may be challenging, but as a contributor to… READ MORE
A Matter of Dignity
Donna Hicks— Like so many of us, I am deeply saddened and outraged by the brutal killing of George Floyd by members of the Minneapolis police. The jaw dropping video… READ MORE
The Moment of Parallel Emancipations in Jamaica
June 1, 2020
Stanley Mirvis— Thirteen years ago, Yale’s Center for British Art, in collaboration with the Institute of Jamaica Museum, commemorated the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade with an… READ MORE
Fake News, Then and Now
May 29, 2020
Tracy Campbell— In his first fireside chat after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt urged Americans “to reject all rumors,” noting that “these ugly little hints of complete disaster fly thick and… READ MORE
Infants and Language Learning
May 22, 2020
Marek Kohn— Amnesia inclines us to assume that entry into language is painless, as does the apparent ease with which children typically become speakers. But many if not most skills… READ MORE
Because You Just Can’t Stop Reading the News
May 21, 2020
We get it. It’s tough to unplug from the current news cycle. If you’re looking for a deeper dive into topics around COVID-19 and beyond, we’ve got you covered (with… READ MORE
Our Altered Sense of Time in a Bewildering Pandemic
April 15, 2020
Joseph Mazur— Our real world is now a setting that was once just a fantasy in the minds of futurist science fiction writers. For decades it was an inevitable scene… READ MORE
Competition, Cooperation, and COVID-19
April 7, 2020
Mark Bertness— Microbial pathogens and diseases were our first and are our oldest enemies. They are a direct threat to human survival. COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS are familiar reminders of how… READ MORE
The New Populism
March 25, 2020
William A. Galston— Because populism embraces the republican principle of popular sovereignty, it faces the question inherent in this principle: Who are the people? Historically, right-leaning populists have emphasized shared… READ MORE
A Conversation with Trudier Harris on Bigger: A Literary Life