Ideas

History Economics Science & Technology Law Philosophy & Religion

The Symbolic Animal

The philosopher Ernst Cassirer’s most timely insight is that even in a scientific age, people are prone to magical, mystical thinking.

April 8, 2021 issue

Marina Warner

Splash

Fantastic beliefs, in the form of false claims and urban legends, have been traveling irresistibly since the eighteenth century. The effect today has been amplified by social media; mermaid sightings rank in popularity alongside those of aliens, angels, and unicorns.

March 25, 2021 issue

John Gray

Is Philosophy an Art?

In Witcraft, Jonathan Rée presents the history of English-language philosophy as a collection of artworks to be appreciated for their aesthetic qualities. But what did philosophers think they were doing?

March 25, 2021 issue

Miranda Seymour

Promethean Women

Both Mary Wollstonecraft, darling of twentieth-century feminists, and her visionary daughter Mary Shelley continue to influence us today.

February 25, 2021 issue

Eamon Duffy

Why Was There a Reformation?

Though Steven Ozment’s The Age of Reform appeared amid a wave of critical thought about the Reformation, it rejected the new histories in favor of polemic.

February 25, 2021 issue

James Oakes

Why Did the Slave Trade Survive So Long?

The history of the Atlantic slave trade after the American Revolution is a story of sustained efforts to suppress it even as demand for African slaves increased.

April 8, 2021 issue

Kwame Anthony Appiah

The Prophet of Maximum Productivity

Thorstein Veblen’s maverick economic ideas made him the foremost iconoclast of the Age of Iconoclasts.

January 14, 2021 issue

Joshua Hammer

A Ghost in the War Machine

Alexander Wolff’s turbulent family history centers on his grandfather, who fled the Nazis, and his father, who fought for them.

April 8, 2021 issue

The Dark Web

Tom Scocca

How the Awful Stuff Won

Andrew Marantz’s and Megan Phelps-Roper’s books explore the dark and far-reaching consequences of our dependence on the Internet.

November 5, 2020 issue

A tweet by Donald Trump featuring an image of himself as Pepe the Frog, a symbol used by the far right, October 13, 2015

Hari Kunzru

For the Lulz

4chan, Gamergate, and how thwarted, angry young men have reshaped political discourse

March 26, 2020 issue

Claudia Dreifus, an interview with Ellen Pao

‘Social Media Reward Bad Behavior’

The former head of Reddit on how platforms like Facebook have amplified disinformation—and don’t want to stop—because attention equals profit.

October 26, 2020

The Latest

Makenna Goodman

Whose ‘Good Life’?

As back-to-the-land pioneers, Scott and Helen Nearing were gurus of a social movement enjoying renewed interest. But it’s an equivocal legacy.

April 17, 2021

Robert Kuttner

Dividends of a Just Economy

What is keeping the government from acting on behalf of its citizens?

April 29, 2021 issue

Natalie de Souza

Editing Humanity’s Future

With CRISPR, our species can turn its inexorable will to control nature back onto itself. Eventually, we could guide human evolution. Does this mean that we should?

April 29, 2021 issue

Erica Armstrong Dunbar

A Praise House of Many Mansions

In a book and documentary series, Henry Louis Gates Jr. offers a wide-ranging tour of Black religion in America.

April 29, 2021 issue

Magda Teter

When Poverty Became Profane

Two recent books, by Debra Kaplan and Natan Meir, examine poverty and charity in European Jewish communities, looking at how a marginalized minority dealt with the problems of destitution and social welfare during periods of rapid change.

April 29, 2021 issue

Jamieson Webster

On Breathing

From first moments to last rites, the air around us is not only essential to life but also carries our speech. So being silenced can feel like death.

April 2, 2021

Rich Cohen

The Lure of the White Sands

If I could understand why the desert affects me so profoundly, maybe I’d know the reason for my obsession. Maybe I’d know everything.

March 29, 2021

Namwali Serpell

The Ecstatic Internet

“Many of us have found a contingent online community of funny, smart black people from across the diaspora, one that isn’t necessarily available to us IRL.”

March 27, 2021

Richard Finkelstein

Passover in Pictures

Every year, Jews gather for the Seder to celebrate their deliverance from servitude and to answer the question: Why is this night different from all other nights?

March 27, 2021