Interview By Design | Sunnis and Shi鈥檃: A Political History January 31, 2020 A typographic cover design poses a unique challenge. Unlike book covers that avail themselves of rich imagery, an all-type cover has to articulate a book鈥檚 subject with a greater economy of means. Read More
Essay Donald and Winston at the Ministry of 鈥ˋlternative Facts January 31, 2020 Is George Orwell the most influential writer who ever lived? Yes, according to John聽Rodden鈥檚 provocative book about the transformation of a man into a myth.聽 Read More
Essay Why we need snarky book reviews鈥攁ccording to reviewers January 23, 2020 In 2010, the Huffington Post compiled a list of 鈥淭he Five Meanest Book Reviews Ever: Franzen, Foer, Larson, and more.鈥澛燭he chart included some real zingers. Read More
Interview Fei-Hsien Wang on Pirates and Publishers January 22, 2020 In聽Pirates and Publishers, Fei-Hsien Wang reveals the unknown social and cultural history of copyright in China from the 1890s through the 1950s, a time of profound sociopolitical changes. Read More
Essay Melancholy, remorse, and resignation in a year of Communist anniversaries January 17, 2020 Vanguard of the Revolution聽is a sweeping history of one of the most significant political institutions of the modern world. The communist party was a revolutionary idea long before its supporters came to power.聽 Read More
Essay What do you really know about gullibility? January 08, 2020 Not Born Yesterday explains how we decide who we can trust and what we should believe鈥攁nd argues that we鈥檙e pretty good at making these decisions. Read More
Interview Robert Frank on Under the Influence January 07, 2020 Psychologists have long understood that social environments profoundly shape our behavior, sometimes for the better, often for the worse. But social influence is a two-way street鈥攐ur environments are themselves products of our behavior. Read More
Essay For the beauty of invisibility January 06, 2020 Human beings are naturally visual creatures. Our eyes, capable of counting single photons, have been optimized over evolutionary time to the very limits of the laws of physics. Read More
Essay Roger F. Pasquier on Birds in Winter December 20, 2019 The recent report from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society that there are today in the United States and Canada 29.4 billion fewer birds than the estimated 100 billion estimated as present fifty years ago is sobering news. Read More
Essay Philip Freeman on聽Cicero, Star Wars, and the Stoic Idea of God December 13, 2019 Ancient Rome was a wildly diverse and exotic place. As I tell the students in my college classes, if you want to get a feel for what Rome was like, watch Star Wars. Read More
Essay How do human rights come about?: A few lesser-known activists and the popular movements they led December 10, 2019 How do human rights actually come about? International resolutions and treaties, like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are important, but they hardly suffice. Read More
Interview Marion Turner on Chaucer: A European Life December 02, 2019 More than any other canonical English writer, Geoffrey Chaucer lived and worked at the centre of political life鈥攜et his poems are anything but conventional. Read More
Interview Jedediah Purdy on This Land is Our Land November 26, 2019 Today, we are at a turning point as we face ecological and political crises that are rooted in conflicts over the land itself. Read More
Interview Dan Hooper on rethinking our universe鈥檚 first moments November 18, 2019 Over the past century, cosmologists have pieced together a remarkably detailed picture of our universe and its history, spanning from the first seconds that followed the Big Bang up to the present. Read More
Essay Michelangelo gave me a new perspective on aging November 15, 2019 I needed to pass age sixty before I could write a book about the artist Michelangelo Buonarroti in his seventies and eighties. Read More
