History & Society

History & Society

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

A man surrounded by clocks in a room.
In a world without clocks, people used common activities in place of time units. How long it took you to go to the toilet mattered.
A post-career world with a desk holding a laptop and hand holding a pen.
In work and life, the rules of success are being redefined.
Historians have been able to piece together a clear picture of how the average Roman citizen spent their waking hours.
A man in a cowboy hat holding a chicken.
Just 12% of Americans account for half the country's total beef consumption.
Two enigmatic jellyfish dancing in the dark.
The best answer we have is, "Life is matter with intentionality."
A map of a city with a lot of pink dots.
Legally smoking joints in city centers will require alertness and a keen sense of orientation — two things stoners are not known for.
A Chinese philosophy book with open pages.
Dive into China's profound intellectual legacy through five seminal texts that have shaped millennia of thought.
Dolly Parton on stage with an acoustic guitar showcases her musical talent.
In Georgia, it's becoming less common to pronounce words like "prize" as "prahz."
Web3 by alex tarcot, stakeholder.
A "stakehodler" has both a voice and a vote, an economic interest in how each network stewards important global resources.
An image of a bottle of milk with bacteria on it.
Because the milk was thin and had an unnatural, bluish tint, vendors stirred in additives such as chalk, flour, eggs, and Plaster-of-Paris.
Two men standing on top of a mountain with a torch.
Humanity is never fully in control of its creations. This lesson from Mary Shelley has remained relevant for over 200 years.
John Templeton Foundation
A group of people sitting around a desk signing papers during a Kinsey study.
There are issues with Kinsey's data, but his books revolutionized Americans' thinking about sex and sexuality.
A radioactive wild boar stands in the snow.
Scientists solve a long-standing mystery in Bavaria.
An alpha male in a suit sitting in a chair.
Successful alpha leadership is more about caring and healing than dog-eat-dog supremacy.
NASA Fermi LAT pulsar gamma ray sky
An enormous amount of antimatter is coming from our galactic center. But the culprit probably isn't dark matter, but merely neutron stars.
A picture of a dollar bill with a wave pattern.
To put things in perspective, the cost of sequencing a single genome in 2012 was around $10,000.
A wake up call for America during World War I.
Still, the author's main argument wasn't totally discredited.