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Ideas

History Economics Science & Technology Law Philosophy & Religion

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

Diane Ravitch

The Dark History of School Choice

How an argument for segregated schools became a rallying cry for privatizing public education.

January 14, 2021 issue

Geoffrey O’Brien

Hitler in Antarctica

A historian of the Third Reich traces the processes by which history is not simply distorted but replaced by a fantastic parallel version.

January 14, 2021 issue

Jenny Uglow

They Made London Their Own

A new book traces the multitudinous contributions of migrants to the capital, as well as their persistent exploitation.

December 3, 2020 issue

Pankaj Mishra

Grand Illusions of the West

It’s time to abandon the intellectual narcissism of cold war Western liberalism.

November 19, 2020 issue

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola; portrait by Cristofano dell’Altissimo, 1560s

Anthony Grafton

Pico della Mirandola’s Mystical Thinking

A new book cuts through generations of misguided commentary on the most famous speech of the Renaissance.

November 5, 2020 issue

Hari Kunzru

The Wages of Whiteness

Whiteness is a concept that can be made to serve many interests and positions, not all of them compatible.

September 24, 2020 issue

Cintra Wilson

The Pleasure Crafts

A new history of pornography before it became commercial.

December 17, 2020 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

‘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

Jacqueline Woodson

‘The Tools We Have’: A Photo History of African Women

A new book offers a striking visual history of African women from 1870 to 1970.

January 23, 2021

Elizabeth Kolbert

Chemical Warfare’s Home Front

Since World War I we’ve been solving problems with dangerous chemicals that introduce new problems.

February 11, 2021 issue

Alexandra D. Lahav

Medicine Is Made for Men

In medical research, drug regulation, and product design, the male body is too often considered as the default — which can have dangerous, even fatal, consequences for women.

February 11, 2021 issue

Richard Kreitner

Secessionist Talk Is Serious

Disunion is hardly a new theme in American politics. In this moment of tumult, it would be unwise to rule out its return.

January 19, 2021

Peter Lowe

A World Without Us: Josef Koudelka’s ‘Ruins’

These photographs of ancient sites, taken around the Mediterranean between 1991 and 2015, are particularly apt in our time of isolation and upheaval.

January 16, 2021

Andrea Pitzer

Mission to the Frozen North

William Barents’s last Arctic voyage was destined to be not a triumph of navigation but a struggle to survive. Four centuries later, his dream of a Northeast Passage is a troubling reality.

January 5, 2021

Pamela Druckerman

The Consolations of Philosophy

My philosopher-therapist thought the ancient Greeks could lead me to the happy state of eudaimonia—literally, having good demons. But would mine play along?

December 31, 2020

Benjamin Moser

Sarajevo Revisited

Retracing my own steps to Bosnia, which were earlier in Susan Sontag’s footprints, I found the city still scarred yet inspiring in its affirmation of human dignity.

December 29, 2020