Excerpts

Environment

Galveston’s Boom-and-Bust History of Migration

From storms to oil booms, the region’s past is marked by extraction, upheaval, and the migrations they set in motion.

Thomas Princen |

Culture

What Socialism Got Right

Writing "The Red Riviera" taught me that even flawed socialist systems offered insights into equality, solidarity, and the dignity of everyday life.

Kristen Ghodsee, Duke University Press |

Science & Tech

Five Moments in the History of Chinese Cybernetics

Tracing cybernetics in China from Norbert Wiener’s visit to Qian Xuesen’s systems thinking and Mao’s “electronic revolution.”

Wang Hongzhe | translated by Allen Young |

Culture

A.J. Ashworth: ‘The Guide’

Across millennia, a cave painter and a son confront the shadows of creation and loss. A story from A.J. Ashworth’s new collection “Maybe the Birds.”

A.J. Ashworth |

Culture

Elsewhere: On Marseille and Its Myths

The port city lives as both place and projection, a landscape forever rewriting itself.

William Firebrace |

Culture

For Women in the Workplace, the Struggle Is Real

We have come a long way, but we have much more work to do.

Alison Rand |

Science & Tech

Is Life a Form of Computation?

Alan Turing and John von Neumann saw it early: the logic of life and the logic of code may be one and the same.

Blaise Agüera y Arcas |

Environment

The Queer Lives of Frogs

What frogs teach us about sex, science, and why biology is messier than we think.

Ambika Kamath & Melina Packer |

Environment

Gaia’s Fever: Why an Overheating Earth Could Turn Deadly

An aging Earth, like an aging body, is increasingly vulnerable to heat’s fatal accidents.

James Lovelock |

Science & Tech

Not Every Idea Deserves Equal Time

A classic critique shows how creationists’ calls for “equal time” in classrooms blurred the line between legitimate scientific debate and intellectual imposture.

Philip Kitcher |

PreviousNext

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter