Nina Banks— Sadie Alexander was an outstanding economic historian whose speeches relied heavily on her knowledge of European and American history. Prior to taking courses in European history at the University of Pennsylvania, Alexander studied the history of African Americans while a student at the M Street High School, which
Joel E. Dimsdale— When I tell people I am interested in brainwashing, I get mixed responses. “Isn’t that kind of a stale, musty topic—Communists, bad science, and all that stuff?” That’s fair: brainwashing has some of those characteristics. It is an old phenomenon, linked to religious conversion and torture. It
Considered a modern classic, this New York Times bestseller by the award-winning journalist Ahmed Rashid provides an early glimpse into the history of the Taliban. Ahmed Rashid— The links between the Taliban and some of the extreme Pakistani Deobandi groups are solid because of the common ground they share. Several
Shaila Seshia Galvin— These days, the word organic typically conjures notions of food that is natural, pure, and ecologically produced. Recent decades have seen the rapid expansion of organic agriculture, with the amount of land area under certification, the number of producers, and the volume of sales all witnessing rapid
Eric Herschthal— It does not take much effort to find evidence of the ways science, medicine, and technology contribute to systemic racism. The Covid pandemic exposed how lack of access to quality medical care, coupled with the prevalence of Black people in low-paying front-line jobs, contributed to the pandemic’s disparate
Nancy F. Cott— As family-centered production gave ground to market-oriented production and individual wage earning, school-teaching became a more important financial resource for young women. Both common schools and private seminaries and academies multiplied during the early national period, creating more frequent opportunities for employment. During the early decades of
Bill Hayton– The fate of Taiwan, an island at the mouth of the South China Sea equidistant between China, Japan, and the Philippines, has returned to the top of the list of geopolitical worries. The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, has reserved “the option of taking all necessary means” to incorporate
Antawan I. Byrd and Felicia Mings— In South Africa separate and unequal access to education, health, and economic opportunity long predated the 1948 implementation of apartheid law—as did resistance to such conditions on the part of Black, Indian, and Colored (multiracial) women. Starting in the early twentieth century, women rallied
Dorothy P. Holinger— A friend recently told me, “I’m irritable, sad, and I get mad so easily. I can’t seem to get anything done. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. And it’s hard, scary to leave home. I think I must be depressed.” No, my friend is not
Jon T. Coleman— I was born in Boulder, Colorado, in the Age of Aquarius. My little sister arrived two years later, on the second anniversary of Earth Day. Geography and history predisposed the Coleman children to think like mountains. My parents furthered the cause by taking us hiking in the