History & Society

History & Society

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

Two red-toned, woodcut-style portraits side by side: one of a gorilla and one of an older man with a beard, on a beige background.
7mins
“The idea of evolution by natural selection is, for me, probably the most beautiful idea in biology.”
A digital illustration of a human brain with glowing neon lines and a translucent geometric cube overlay at the center.
3mins
Humans have always had religion. What does this say about our minds? Reza Aslan PhD, Lisa Miller PhD, and Rob Bell MDiv explain.
Unlikely Collaborators
A vintage, hexagonal brooch featuring a realistic painted human eye in the center, surrounded by a metallic frame.
2mins
Astrobiologist Betül Kaçar on why the simple act of asking questions (without needing a reason) is one of the most powerful things a human can do.
A hand holding a sealed envelope emerges from turbulent ocean waves against a black background.
13mins
“All information technologies up to the 21st century were organic networks based on our organic brain.”
Two ancient coins depicting explicit erotic scenes with human figures in sexual positions, shown against a black background.
39mins
"One of the ways you can see the Roman Empire is it's the worldwide web of its day."
A man looking at a meteorite.
19mins
“So many things could have happened in a different way that we wouldn't be here at all, both individually, for sure, and certainly as a species.”
A magnifying glass focusing on concentric circles against a plain teal background.
19mins
"It's a very, very beautiful calculation, but it's the best example I know of the relationship between these rather abstract quantities perhaps and something that you can look at in a telescope."
A historical illustration shows one man performing a medical procedure on another man’s chest using a metal instrument, both with serious expressions.
3mins
According to philosopher Meghan Sullivan, effective altruism may overlook the moral importance of seeing others as individuals. She explains how love should guide how we care for both present and future humans.
Two silhouetted figures against a blue background, with one appearing to whisper to the other.
16mins
“CIA classifies their secrets according to different terminology. There's confidential secrets, there are secret level secrets, and then there are top secret secrets. And the way that they define each of these different levels actually has to do with the impact that would occur if the secret became public knowledge.”
A woman in a blue and yellow headscarf and pearl earring holds a smartphone, looking over her shoulder, mimicking the style of a classic painting.
3mins
From the printing press to the internet, every technological revolution in history has reshaped human thought. Now, with AI accelerating by the day, philosopher Meghan Sullivan asks: Are we ready for the philosophical shift that must follow?
Why do we fall in love with one person over another? The late biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher unpacks the evolutionary roots of romantic love, sex, and attachment.  Using research […]
A petri dish containing various colorful bacterial colonies growing on agar, viewed from above against a dark background.
6mins
These microbes endured the unlivable. The NASA astrobiologist who studies them reveals what that means for us today
A sequence of six yellow-gold spheres illustrates stages of cell division against a black background.
43mins
"If we're related to every living thing on the planet, do we not have a special responsibility for every living thing on this planet? They are really all our relatives."
A monarch butterfly with orange and black wings rests on water, creating a ripple pattern around it.
5mins
“When you think about this interconnection of all these tiny causes and effects which add up to the way the world unfolds, it becomes impossible to imagine that we have complete control.”
A human cell and the Earth are shown side by side in outer space against a starry background.
1hr 11mins
“It's a remarkable series of events that were required for us to be here, and that so many things could have happened in a different way that we wouldn't be here at all, both individually, and as a species.”
Marble bust of a bearded man with eyes closed and mouth covered by a strip of black tape, set against a black background.
20mins
“Even if there are beliefs that we hold that are true, if we prevent people challenging those beliefs, we will lose our understanding of why they're true.”
A human hand appears to hold a glowing celestial object surrounded by small planets and stars, creating the illusion of a miniature universe in the palm.
11mins
"We are all in orbit around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. How big is this collection of stars? Somewhere between 200 and 400 billion suns in the Milky Way galaxy, about 100,000 light years across."
A man in a black suit sits on a chair against a white backdrop, surrounded by several monarch butterflies on a bright blue background.
1hr 36mins
"It's a true fact, but a bizarre one, that the reason why hundreds of thousands of people died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki rather than Kyoto and Kokura, is because of a 19-year-old vacation and a passing cloud."
A man in a blazer holds up a yellow card with black line drawings and gestures with his other hand against a plain background.
8mins
"There is interesting ethical questions about how we should actually conduct ourselves in [a space colonization] exploration phase."
A person sits on a chair in front of a white backdrop in a loft-style room with brick walls, dark flooring, and two windows.
1hr 18mins
"The more uncertain and scary things get in the world, the more we as humans are drawn to simple dichotomies."