History & Society

History & Society

Trace how culture, power, and ideas shape societies across time.

A blurred black-and-white image of an American flag, with the stars and stripes visibly distorted, subtly reflecting political polarization.
"We’re acting more like fans of a football team going to a game than a banker carefully choosing investments."
A stylized digital shield in the center, surrounded by red pixelated designs, with quantum code fragments displayed on the shield. The background has black, swirling patterns, reminiscent of encryption tools at work.
Quantum computing brings significant opportunities — but equally significant cybersecurity risks.
Collage featuring a surfer, hands holding a Rubik's cube, and text "The Nightcrawler." Abstract elements include graphs, car parts, and a cityscape interwoven with life lessons.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.
Top image: Close-up of hands slicing a piece of raw meat with a knife, emphasizing precision akin to the longevity sought in business immortality. Bottom image: Close-up of two Zildjian cymbals of different sizes on a grid pattern background.
In a world of distractions, several remarkable companies show why focus is the ultimate strategy for endurance.
Two breathtaking pictures of a galaxy and a star taken by the Hubble telescope, highlighting the beauty and cosmic magnitude that fuels the Hubble tension.
In the expanding Universe, different ways of measuring its rate give incompatible answers. Nobel Laureate Adam Riess explains what it means.
The image shows a bright spot labeled "JADES-GS-z13-1-LA," seemingly an impossible light captured by the JWST, surrounded by measurement markers, including a scale bar for 1 kpc and 0.28 arcsec. Filters and colors are listed at the bottom.
The Lyman-α emission line has never been seen earlier than 550 million years after the Big Bang. So why does JADES-GS-z13-1-LA have one?
Film strip collage of abstract images—including faces with X marks, colorful patterns, and nature elements—evokes the vibrant allure of "Crazy Rich Asians.
"No matter how long you’ve been doing a job or how good people say you are, you need to care as if you’ve never done it before."
uap ufo UAPs UFOs
Although a great many unidentified sights have been seen in the skies, none have conclusively demonstrated the presence of aliens. So far.
A world map displays global climate zones with colors representing varying levels of temperature and precipitation: green for temperate, yellow for arid, orange and red for hotter regions, and blue for wet zones.
The salinity of the oceans is not just a matter of taste. Saltier water behaves differently, too.
A large group of people, some standing and some sitting, gather outdoors in front of a tent and a horse-drawn carriage, set against a grassy field with a few trees in the background.
The annual rite of passage has always been more about the ambivalence of adults than the amusement of children.
A person lies in bed reading a book, wearing a white blouse, in a painting with soft, muted colors.
With the right prompts, large language models can produce quality writing — and make us question the limits of human creativity.
A montage of famous philosophers’ portraits next to a large question mark on the right, intersected by a horizontal arrow.
Philosophy cures no disease and invents nothing new. What's even the point?
zero gravity flight stephen hawking
The mass that gravitates and the mass that resists motion are, somehow, the same mass. But even Einstein didn't know why this is so.
A person in glasses using a computer is repeated four times on the left, showcasing the intensity of the first pro gamer, while two video game screenshots are featured on the right side of the image. Pink neon lines are superimposed over the scenes.
Dennis “Thresh” Fong talks to us about battling Elon Musk in Quake in the ‘90s, his undefeated record as a pro gamer, and using AI to detoxify gaming.
Black and white illustration of people in 18th-century attire at a dining table, overlaid with red-orange borders and white arrows indicating interaction among the individuals.
If philosophers really enjoy one thing, it’s a good debate — but not an argument.
Book cover of "Inheritance" by Harvey Whitehouse. The white cover features a vertical tear revealing a stack of people on one side and a green landscape on the other. Subtext reads "The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World.
Religion is a product of, and not a source of, our evolutionary moral dispositions.
A collage-style graphic features a man with a goatee, the title "The Nightcrawler," stock charts, and abstract shapes in orange and green.
Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.
Image with a split view: the left half shows a black-and-white image of Earth, the right half depicts a grayscale crowd scene. Text overlay: "More Humans Are Better," with the number "3" in the top right corner.
In a world of rising cynicism, a celebration of our capacity to create, adapt, and thrive.