To begin with, some basic biology. Human beings share fully 99.5 percent of our DNA. In other words, the individual difference between us – in height and weight, in skin color, in hair texture – are shaped by a mere 0.5 percent of our genetic material. This is how Michael
In 1792, the Hankey left Britain full of abolitionists who hoped to establish a colony free of slavery in West Africa. Botched negotiations with local tribes and the failure of the colony sent the Hankey on a trip around the Atlantic with a terrible infestation of Yellow Fever. Billy Smith
Robert A. Dahl (1915 – 2014), eminent political scientist and champion of democracy, passed away on February 5, 2014 in Hamden, Connecticut, at age 98. Named by Foreign Affairs magazine the “dean of American political scientists,” Dahl was instrumental in building one of the first modern political science departments. Dahl authored hundreds of articles and dozens
People who watch U.S. television shows, attend Hollywood movies, and listen to pop music can’t help but believe that we are a nation in which we have sex with strangers regularly, where we wander the streets well-armed and prepared to shoot our neighbors at any provocation, and where the life
Sarah Miller— Right before Yale College’s course “shopping period” at the beginning of each semester, I visited the campus bookstores. Among the best parts of each new semester was an excuse to buy new books, and I was drawn to more than a few courses based solely on the corresponding
In the newly published Civil Disobedience: An American Tradition, Lewis Perry traces the history of civil disobedience in the United States from its pre-revolutionary backgrounds to the present. Amidst the controversy that ebbs and flows over civil disobedience, and the studies of individuals and events, there seems to be one
As we transition from American History November to Holiday Gift-giving December, we are sharing a series of previews of Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy’s profiles of the British leaders during the American Revolution from The Men Who Lost America, beginning with King George III. Each profile looks carefully at the myths that have develop around each
A writer, novelist, filmmaker, and activist, Susan Sontag was an engaged intellectual for whom thinking was a form of feeling and feeling a form of thinking. One of the most influential critics of her generation, she was widely admired by many women and something of a contested figure within the LGBTQ communities,
Given the failure of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha round of tariff cuts, the world economy has remained partly closed: agriculture is protected and one cannot freely sell industrial goods to developing nations. After the economic temblors of 2008, the prospect of American and European decline captures headlines and