Andrew Wilson— America voted in its mid-terms yesterday. Meanwhile, far-off Ukraine has held no less than two elections in a week, one in Ukraine as a whole and one in the rebel republics in east Ukraine. The latter wasn’t a real election, but the rival votes are crucial stages in
Melissa R. Michelson— If you want to get depressed about the health of our democracy, do a quick Internet search for news about voter turnout. Almost every link is to a headline about low or poor turnout expected in the 2014 midterm elections. Despite a wealth of close races and
Lisa Garcia Bedolla— If voters of color don’t vote on Tuesday, don’t be surprised. The New York Times recently published a story on the dramatic advances in campaign data analytics since the 2008 election. According to the Times, “modern political campaigns home in on their key voters with drone-like precision,
Welcome to our weekly roundup of news from university presses! Once again, there is a lot to share this week from our fellow academic publishing houses and much to learn on What SUP at the social university presses. This week, we found celebrated National Cat Day, found book deals and
Lee Jackson, author of Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth, wrote a series of posts for the Yale University Press London Blog to explain how the inventors of ‘sanitary science’ nevertheless lived in what remained a notoriously filthy city. Some of these entries will be appearing here on the
Richard Pells— October 30, 1938. The night before Halloween in America. After dinner, at 8:00 in the evening, Eastern Standard Time, families throughout the country gathered in their living rooms, as they usually did, to listen to the radio. At that hour, the highest-rated show on the radio was NBC’s
Benny Shilo— Traditional science regards the body as a collection of cells all carrying identical genetic information. The body cells generate specialized tissues that orchestrate the activity of an entire body. This view has been recently challenged, with new scientific findings showing that the microorganisms we carry in and on
Welcome to our weekly roundup of news from university presses! Once again, there is a lot to share this week from our fellow academic publishing houses and much to learn on What SUP at the social university presses. This week, we analyzed Dear White People, compared medieval Judaism and Christianity, and
Mark Polizzotti— At first blush, the qualities suggested by Patrick Modiano’s fictions do not shout “Nobel.” Unlike Sartre (the laureate malgre lui), with his grand philosophical pronouncements, or France’s previous honoree, the famously peripatetic J. M. G. Le Clezio, Modiano tends to keep to himself, in narratives that are often
Brothers Allen and Wallace Shawn recently sat down to discuss the life of legendary composer, conductor, and author Leonard Bernstein. While most of us know him today for the spectacular scores he composed for The West Side Story, On The Waterfront, and A Quiet Place, few may not know his struggles as