While the magazine has closed, its living archive endures—open to all and preserving the many ideas, voices, and discoveries that deepen our understanding of what it means to be human.
Did enslaved people contribute more than solely their labor to the success of rice plantations in the New World? In pursuit of the answer, one researcher is extracting little bits of memoir trapped inside rice grains.
The Good Old DaysThe craving for simplicity comes from nostalgia for simpler times. But it is harmful to remember the past as “simple.”
The Silk Ribbon of HighwaysWhat do 53-foot shipping containers and Bactrian camels have in common? Not much at first glance, but dig a little deeper and you find some surprising similarities.
How Tourism Reinvented Jesus’ Baptism SitePilgrims and tourists are flocking to a baptismal site in the Holy Land in search of religious experience—and souvenirs.
The Long CountHow we memorialize significant events says a lot about our perception of time.
Black Lives Matter and Reflections From a Civil WarThe everyday discrimination against black people in the United States bears frightening similarities to the suppression of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Trump and the Echo of AmacheDonald Trump’s disturbing anti-Muslim rhetoric echoes an ugly chapter in U.S. history: the time leading up to the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
American Confederates and the Origins of Archaeology in the Amazon BasinSoutherners who settled along the Amazon River after the Civil War stumbled upon rich soils for their plantations—but they also discovered an even richer past.
A Weak Commission Brought Forth Survivors’ Truths, but Has It Made Reconciliation Possible?The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada gave voice to the violence committed in Indian residential schools. Unfortunately, it failed to fully achieve either healing or justice among many of those involved.
Paleolithic Ax Debunks Colonial MythThe discovery of the world’s oldest ground-edge ax in Australia exposes our faulty assumptions about race, place, and human evolution.
