Our Imperiled World
It took billions of years to make the earth habitable for humans. A distinguished astronomer warns the United Nations how quickly that can be reversed.
By Owen Gingerich Friday, December 7, 2012
No Sentiment
Baudelaire’s shock of the new
By Peter Fritzsche Friday, December 7, 2012
La Folie Beaudelaire By Roberto Calasso
Water in the Empty Part of the Map
The treacherous quest for the source of the Nile was the downfall of John Hanning Speke
By Sierra Bellows Friday, December 7, 2012
Fantastic Visions
Not crazy, just creative
By T. M. Luhrmann Friday, December 7, 2012
Hallucinations By Oliver Sacks
Eviction Noticed
Gentrification in Berlin shutters a bombed-out building where artists had squatted since the Wall came down
By Bruce Falconer Friday, December 7, 2012
A New Birth of Reason
Robert Ingersoll, the Great Agnostic, inspired late-19th-century Americans to uphold the founders’ belief in separation of church and state
By Susan Jacoby Friday, December 7, 2012
Totalitarianism in Practice
Terror as a way of life in East Germany, Poland, and Hungary
By Gary Saul Morson Friday, December 7, 2012
Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1945-1956 By Anne Applebaum
On Friendship
The intimacies shared with our closest companions keep us anchored, vital, and alive