History & Society

History & Society

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

A portrayal of a bespectacled man with a serpent inspired by Carl Jung's theories.
Aiming to unlock the secrets of his unconscious mind, Jung experimented with intensive daydreaming.
Three women, embodying the male hunter myth, standing confidently on a rock and armed with spears.
In numerous cultures worldwide, women were just as involved in bringing home the prehistoric bacon as their male counterparts.
three scuba divers in the water.
The divers spend their waking hours either under hundreds of feet of water on the ocean floor or squeezed into an area the size of a restaurant booth.
A Tolkien-inspired painting portraying a man and woman amidst a mystical forest.
Ignoring the legacy of William Shakespeare is difficult for any writer, let alone one as quintessentially English as "Lord of the Rings" author J.R.R. Tolkien.
a painting of a group of people drinking in a room, depicting the extinction of gatherings.
The separation of pleasure from procreation may occur throughout the cosmos, providing an explanation for the Fermi Paradox.
breakthrough starshot
A Harvard astronomer went to the bottom of the ocean, claiming he recovered alien technology. But what does the science actually indicate?
a group of men standing next to each other.
The path of a curling stone on ice — and how it can be influenced — is a revealing metaphor for life's decisions.
Outrage machine fueled by emojis with expressions on a black background.
The outrage machine is fueled by toxicity. But there are practical steps that we can take to recapture control over our emotions.
an image of consciousness represented by a brain on a pink background.
Will we ever unravel the mystery of consciousness? Two academics made a 25-year bet on it. The scientist lost.
a large white dome in the middle of a city.
Get ready for the most peculiar road trip that will help you understand the vastness and emptiness of the solar system — and Sweden.
A pacifist's explosive, adorned with blooming flowers.
No, Gandhi did not single-handedly bring about Indian independence. Pacifism alone usually gets you killed.
The biggest nuclear blast in history came courtesy of Tsar Bomba. We could make something at least 100 times more powerful.
An aztec calendar on a white background.
The answer largely centers on crops and cows.
A group of people engaged in dark humor while standing around a skeleton.
When done right, dark humor can help us face inconvenient truths and question stifling social conventions.
space elevator
But it's still challenging to build a 22,000-mile elevator.
A man in a suit and tie showcasing a hat
Roosevelt had become president but not in the way he wanted. Still, he understood that he had been given the rare opportunity to make history.
distant quasar
Headlines have blared that quasar ticking confirms that time passed more slowly in the early Universe. That's not how any of this works.
A medieval painting featuring a man holding a beaker and a book.
Perhaps there was something theatrically satisfying about a learned man waving around a flask of pee, looking at it from all angles, sniffing it, and making bold proclamations.
an image of a man with glasses.
If you want to write and speak well, use common words, not grandiose ones. Unless you're Shakespeare, you're more likely to annoy people.