Publishing since 2016.
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Longtime Mississippi education advocate Rachel Canter reflects on the difference between shaping policy from within a community and doing so from afar—and the vital accountability that can get lost along the way.
Balancing an ambitious career with twins seemed possible until it no longer was. Katie Trexler, a former morning news anchor, examines the quiet trade-off associated with motherhood and the desire to honor both family and self.
Peter Clarke explores the divide between people who apparently experience a constant internal monologue and those who do not. In doing so, he asks what this difference might mean for friendship, romance, personality, and the way we move through the world.
Also in Essays
W. D. Ehrhart, a frequent contributor to this magazine's poetry section, reflects on grief and loss following the death of Beanie, his family’s beloved cat of nearly twenty-two years.
Channeling Tolstoy's 1886 novella, Robin Greene, who has now turned seventy-one, reflects on aging, mortality, and meaning.
Erich J. Prince argues that critics of zoos too often mistake today’s conservation-minded institutions for the barren cages of the past, overlooking the species modern zoos and aquariums have helped save from extinction and their role in fostering a love of animals.
“The words on the page do not come with built-in instructions for how to resolve their own ambiguities.”Stuart Doyle — The Oldest New Idea
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Simon Maass traces the enduring influence of Austria-Hungary on modern intellectual life, arguing that the empire’s admirers have often drawn precisely the wrong lessons from its history.
Karen M. Prince, who grew up in a family that frequently rescued dogs, argues that compassion for unwanted animals should not blind us to the dangers posed by pit bulls, a breed responsible for far too many severe and fatal attacks, particularly against children.
Allen M. Hornblum, author of The Invisible Harry Gold, reviews Antonia Senior’s new book on the Cambridge Five, examining how a group of privileged Cambridge graduates came to betray their country—and why the British government was so slow to hold them accountable.
Below the fold
What would happen to morality and politics if Descartes’s skeptical scenarios turned out to be true? Philosopher Jimmy Alfonso Licon argues that the answer depends: Some would unsettle our claims about property, legitimacy, and history, while others would leave much of ordinary life intact.
Bruno Manno reflects on Fourth of July celebrations at his grandparents’ Italian tavern in Cleveland in the 1960s—and on the need for a renewed, reflective patriotism as America marks its 250th birthday. To combat growing disengagement among the citizenry, he proposes a new civic compact.
Step inside the mind of a linguist as Danny Bate considers what words like “ticketed” reveal about English spelling and how the language’s written form is becoming, in subtle and accidental ways, a little more Chinese-like.
Scholars Andrew Hadfield and Joanne Paul examine the many competing interpretations of Thomas More, a historical figure of remarkable complexity and enduring interest, nearly five centuries after his death.
Christian Miller, a Wake Forest professor and director of the inter-university Honesty Project, urges us to rediscover the virtue of honesty at a time when it is increasingly imperiled by artificial intelligence, online infidelity, and other temptations to deceive.
Bruno V. Manno argues that men without college degrees need more than job training or credentials. They need “social wealth”: relationships, mentors, institutions, and pathways that help them build stable, connected lives rather than be left behind.
Pericles is remembered as Athens’ great democratic statesman and orator. But as Cambridge University classicist Paul Cartledge argues, his private life—especially his relationship with Aspasia—also reveals him as one of antiquity’s most distinctive, even eccentric, figures.
Trump’s critics accuse him of abandoning his peace platform by striking Iran. Walter Block and Frank Tipler argue instead that the United States is finally answering decades of Iranian aggression—and that force may be necessary to restore peace
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