History & Society

History & Society

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

Albert Einstein played a mean violin.
Christianity england
For the first time in nearly 1500 years, fewer than half the people in England and Wales consider themselves Christian.
superabundance
Inequality should be measured in terms of the time it takes for us to earn the money to buy the things we need. And everyone is getting wealthier.
iconoclast
Climate activists' brand of iconoclasm is far removed from the Beeldenstorm that swept medieval Europe.
The spikes in their mouths would have helped them catch squid or fish.
A Carrington-magnitude event would kill millions, and cause trillions of dollars in damage. Sadly, it isn't even the worst-case scenario.
Between the instability of the real estate market and cryptocurrency fluctuations, everyone has been talking about bubbles. But what are they, really?
Million Stories
Compared to Earth, Mars is small, cold, dry, and lifeless. But 3.4 billion years ago, a killer asteroid caused a Martian megatsunami.
Rembrandt Raising of the Cross sketch
A conservator from the Rijksmuseum explains how they went about investigating whether the painting is a genuine Rembrandt.
Bilingualism confers various mental health and social benefits. Perhaps knowing a second alphabet confers even more.
All roads may not lead to Rome, but many of them lead to wealth and prosperity — even 1,500 years after the fall of the Roman Empire.
Psychologists are finding that moral code violations can leave an enduring mark — and may require new types of therapy.
By studying the dwarf galaxy Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte ~3 million light-years away, JWST reveals the Universe's star-forming history firsthand.
Mahāyāna is the most popular type of Buddhism in the world today.
There are different types of atheism and atheists. In general, they can be classified as the non-religious, the non-believers, and agnostics.
An independent researcher looks into why there's such strong opposition to her research.