Tag social science

Tootle the Engine and Character Formation

David Riesman with Nathan Glazer and Reuel Denney— Tootle the Engine (text by Gertrude Crampton, pictures by Tibor Gergely) is a popular and in many ways charming volume in the “Little Golden Books” series. It is a cautionary tale even though it appears to be simply one of the many

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On the Origin of the Coffeehouse

Brian Cowan— It should be easy to identify what a coffeehouse was at the dawn of the eighteenth century: a place where people gathered together to drink coffee, learn about the news of the day, and perhaps to meet with other local residents and discuss matters of mutual concern. Yet

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7 Billion and Counting: World Population and the American Census

Margot Anderson – July 11 is World Population Day, a yearly commemoration established in 1989 by the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Program of the United Nations to focus attention on world population issues.  This year’s theme focuses on “Vulnerable Populations in Emergencies” particularly the “hygiene, health, dignity,

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The Mysteries of the Potato Revealed

Follow @yaleSCIbooks Europe took a very long time to get used to the spud, according to John Reader in Potato: A History of the Propitious Esculent. The Bible never mentions potatoes, so European clergymen in the 1700s banned the consumption of the suspiciously anonymous tuber. Doctors in the previous century

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