The Fair Fields

Only rarely did the outside world intrude on an idyllic Connecticut childhood, but in the tumultuous 1960s, that intrusion included an encounter with evil

Just Yesterday

“The Frog Prince” by Stevie Smith

Poems read aloud, beautifully

The Epic Viking Saga of the Everyday

Eleanor Barraclough on the ordinary people of Norse history

All Talk

Ease of communication will not save us

Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart by Nicholas Carr

Burned

“The White Heart of God” by Jack Gilbert

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Paige Ledom

Out of the ordinary

The Brahmin and His Imaginary Friend

How a classic paean to the honest virtues of a Maine fisherman obscured several ugly truths

Old Christ Church in Alexandria. Virginia, attended by General Robert E. Lee in his youth and pictured here in 1911 (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign/Wikimedia Commons)

Divided Providence

Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War

Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Union by Richard Carwardine

Piercing the Veil

When what’s past is present

An American Tchaikovsky

Remembering William Grant Still

Foes of Judgment

Numbers don’t always reveal the true nature of things

The Tyranny of Metricsby Jerry Z. Muller

Solar Escape

How Spain helped cure my winter blues

Honor Role

Coming Home

A rediscovery of the familiar

Zombies and Plagues and Bombs, Oh My!

How hyperbolic outbreak narratives have infected our worldview—from media to the government

An Even Greater Beyond

Will technology bring us eternal life?

Heavens on Earthby Michael Shermer

Ah, Bitter Chill It Was!

Franz Liszt’s Chasse-neige

On a Walkabout

The art of going nowhere in particular

● NEWSLETTER

Please enter a valid email address
That address is already in use
The security code entered was incorrect
Thanks for signing up