Interview Andrew H. Knoll on Earth and Life April 01, 2026 How did the world as we know it鈥攆rom the soil beneath our feet to the air we breathe and the life that surrounds us鈥攃ome to be? Geologists have proposed one set of answers while biologists have proposed another. Read More
Interview Mark Peterson on The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution March 25, 2026 Mark Peterson discusses The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution: A Thousand-Year History, his provocative new history of America鈥檚 constitution and urgent call to action for a nation confronted by challenges its founders could never have imagined. Read More
Essay The human (or bat, or abalone) experience March 24, 2026 In 1974, philosopher Thomas Nagel published a now-famous paper titled 鈥淲hat is it Like to be a Bat?鈥�. By imagining how another species experiences the world, Nagel hoped to explore the the notion of consciousness itself. Read More
Interview Leslie Umberger on Grandma Moses March 24, 2026 Leslie Umberger is coauthor (along with Randall R. Griffey) of Grandma Moses: A Good Day's Work, a major reexamination of the life, art, and legacy of a self-taught American master. Read More
Essay Novel innovations and new spaces of possibility March 18, 2026 In 1901 Greek fishermen diving for sponges discovered a bronze device, long encrusted with sea life, buried in the wreck of an ancient Greek boat. This mechanism is far too sophisticated not to have been preceded by more primitive devices. Read More
Einstein in all formats March 12, 2026 Eric Crahan, Editor in Chief for the Humanities and Social Sciences, reflects on the relationship between the scientific titan and PUP and how some of the technological changes of the last century have helped us steward his work. Read More
Interview Barry Eichengreen on Money Beyond Borders March 11, 2026 In Money Beyond Borders, the leading authority on international currencies, Barry Eichengreen, puts the dollar鈥檚 prospects in deep historical perspective by chronicling the entire history of cross-border currencies, from the invention of coins in the seventh century BCE to the cryptocurrencies of today and the central bank digital currencies of tomorrow. Read More
Essay The war conundrum March 11, 2026 Read or listen to the news and the world seems like a violent place. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the razing of Gaza, and the ongoing US-Israel assault on Iran may garner the most attention in the Western press, but they鈥檙e merely the most prominent in a depressingly long list of current conflicts. Read More
Essay Pursuits of happiness March 05, 2026 鈥淥f course we all want to be happy,鈥� wrote the Roman statesman and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero in 46 BCE.聽 In doing so, he was echoing not only centuries of popular sentiment but also the teaching of Greek philosophers. Read More
Essay Hereditary (2018): The monstrous bitch bites back March 04, 2026 It would be difficult to find a 21st century horror film that was more critically acclaimed and more genuinely terrifying than Hereditary. The underlying reason, I think, is that the film does something extraordinary in its thinking about women in relation to patriarchy. Read More
Essay Clash of Titians February 24, 2026 Titian and Michelangelo were already famous by the time they first met in 1529, and they were extravagantly famous by the time they met again in Rome in 1546. They did not need to compete, but they did鈥攕ometimes admiring and emulating, sometimes criticizing and correcting. Read More
Interview Ian Stewart on Reaching for the Extreme February 24, 2026 Many of the deepest and most important areas of mathematics have emerged from questions about extremes鈥攖he shortest path between two points on a curved surface, the smallest area spanning a wire, or the fewest colors needed to make a map. Read More
Interview Cornelia Woll on Corporate Crime and Punishment February 20, 2026 Markets are often seen as systems guided by economic incentives and protected by the rule of law. In Corporate Crime and Punishment, Cornelia Woll provides a different perspective on the interaction of law and the economy across boundaries. Read More
Essay Embracing Addiction February 20, 2026 What if we didn鈥檛 shame others and ourselves for our dependencies? And, instead of trying to banish it, might we embrace addiction as a binding force, profoundly worthy of our devotion? Read More
Interview Steven Weitzman on Disasters of Biblical Proportions February 10, 2026 Steven Weitzman explores how people of later ages鈥攁rtists, writers, activists, philosophers, believers and unbelievers alike鈥攈ave reshaped the story of the ten plagues to give expression to their own trauma, outrage, guilt, humor, and hope. Read More
