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A library of interviews with the world’s biggest thinkers.
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The NAACP president grew up hearing that civil rights was a settled issue, only to find that cancerous racial problems still persisted.
42mins
An interview with the president of the NAACP.
13mins
After the Copenhagen Climate Council was considered a failure, how should we prepare for COP-16 in Mexico? Big Think’s live roundtable on March 26, 2010 in Houston was moderated by […]
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The historian and artist names some contemporary masters whose work deserves wider recognition.
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Yes, Nell Irvin Painter is a painter. But she didn’t start pursuing an art MFA until she’d already become a distinguished Princeton historian. What prompted the shift in gears?
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The author of “The History of White People” believes racial attitudes are starting to relax in the Obama era. Class differences, though, remain as problematic as ever.
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The concept of race may be a kind of cultural superstition, but in America at least, it’s not going away anytime soon.
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How did Italians, Jews, and other peoples become “white”? And will other, currently “nonwhite” ethnic groups follow suit?
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Ralph Waldo Emerson was a vocal abolitionist, yet also romanticized a “Saxon” racial ideal. How should we make sense of his attitudes—and untangle them from our own?
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Race is a 19th-century concept. In the 18th century, the division of human “varieties” was just as arbitrary—but a little more creative.
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When did the concept of race originate? And was there no such thing as racism before it did? The author of “The History of White People” explains.
26mins
A conversation with the professor of American history at Princeton.
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Humans have not acknowledged the degree to which we are a dangerous species. Life is safer if we recognize the dangers and anticipate them.
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There will be a day when our food will be piped into our houses in some form of algomash that we can then turn into the equivalent of today’s hamburgers […]
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Will raw foodists evolve differently from humans who eat cooked food?
9mins
We have the smallest guts of all primates, and the biggest brains. Blame cooking.
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Creationism is simply part of the package for many religious people in the U.S.
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Having more females in positions of power could reduce aggression in our society.
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The legendary primatologist would produce a few great observations on how to behave and then would just let you run, he says.
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There is evidence that humans are predisposed to behave violently in certain contexts. But the more we’re aware of it, the more we can do about it.