Essay A look inside Just Giving July 24, 2020 鈥淵our fortune is rolling up, rolling up like an avalanche! You must keep up with it! You must distribute it faster than it grows! If you do not, it will crush you, and your children, and your children鈥檚 children!鈥� So wrote Frederick Gates to sixty-seven-year-old John D. Rockefeller in 1906. Read More
Interview By Design | Karen Siatras on designing for Humboldt July 20, 2020 Karen Siatras is a graphic designer in SAAM鈥檚 Publications office. For her most recent project, the massive exhibition catalogue that accompanies聽Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture, she created special decorative letters at the start of each chapter in the book. Read More
Essay A highland roadside: Verge and woodland July 17, 2020 Even better than a shady bank scattered with the fresh June fronds of Beech Fern Phegopteris connectilis interwoven with bluebells, stitchwort, red campion and spikes of Wood Horsetail Equisetum sylvaticum is a roadside verge with thousands of Beech Fern fronds, stretching as far ahead as you can see and spilling down the bank into the woodland alongside. Read More
Interview Eva Rosen on The Voucher Promise July 15, 2020 Housing vouchers are a cornerstone of聽US聽federal housing policy, offering aid to more than two million households. Vouchers are meant to provide the poor with increased choice in the private rental marketplace, enabling access to safe neighborhoods with good schools and higher-paying jobs. But do they? Read More
Essay The Black man at Lincoln鈥檚 feet: Archer Alexander and the problem of emancipation July 13, 2020 The Emancipation Memorial sits imprisoned in a cage in Washington鈥檚 Lincoln Park, waiting to hear whether it will be exiled or set free. The fate of its replica in Boston is also hanging in the balance, as a petition for its removal has been signed by thousands. Read More
Essay Promised Words July 10, 2020 In the early morning, before my 2-year-old and 7-year-old wake up, I sneak down the creaky stairs, swinging slightly on the bannisters to keep my weight from announcing my descent. My younger child seems to have impossibly sensitive hearing, and so I crunch my granola on the couch as quietly as possible, while I begin work-related email and reading. Read More
Essay The puzzle of our future humanity:聽One mathematician鈥檚 perspective July 08, 2020 While completing this piece, the world came together in shared sadness, pain, and grief. This time has been an awakening for some and a reminder for others of the injustice all around us and its long and ugly legacy. Read More
Interview Hips don鈥檛 lie: The American incognitum July 07, 2020 While the Smithsonian American Art Museum rarely houses fossil remains, an amazing specimen, the original 鈥淧eale Mastodon鈥� skeleton, is part of the upcoming exhibition聽Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture. Read More
Interview Naomi Oreskes: Feminist science is better science July 06, 2020 American public life is rife with questions of scientific judgment. Does red meat really cause cancers and heart disease, or are such fears overblown? How can scientists tell that climate change is occurring and what the effects of global warming might be? Read More
Interview Ang猫le Christin on Metrics at Work July 05, 2020 During the COVID-19 pandemic more than ever, digital platforms and news websites have become a lifeline for information and interaction for people isolated from face-to-face contact. Ang猫le Christin goes behind the scenes of our screens, analyzing how news production changed as it moved online. Read More
Interview Adam Sutcliffe on What Are Jews For? July 02, 2020 What is the purpose of Jews in the world? The Bible singles out the Jews as God鈥檚 鈥渃hosen people,鈥� but the significance of this special status has been understood in many different ways over the centuries.聽 Read More
Video A brush with nature: Alexander von Humboldt and Frederic Church June 30, 2020 What made Alexander von Humboldt a superstar in the 1800s was聽Cosmos, his global best-selling, multi-volume series on his scientific observations and international travels. Read More
Essay Fighting the deportation machine June 24, 2020 Javier Garc铆a Bautista had not been at his station for long on May 17 when someone in the carpentry department of the suburban-Los Angeles shoe factory where he worked yelled out, 鈥淭he migra is here!鈥� Read More
Essay All at sea: The maritime lives of the ancient Phoenicians June 23, 2020 The Phoenicians were, according to one ancient scholar, 鈥榯he first to plough the sea鈥�. The little ports of the Bronze Age Levant, including Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos, lay between the great empires of Egypt, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia. Read More
Essay A belief in meritocracy is not only false: it鈥檚 bad for you June 22, 2020 Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of life鈥攎oney, power, jobs, university admission鈥攕hould be distributed according to skill and effort. Read More
