Brian Fagan, University of California, Santa Barbara
Today’s beds are thought of as bastions of privacy. But not long ago, they were the perches from which kings ruled and places where travelers hunkered down with complete strangers.
The day and a half it takes to get from New York to Singapore and back offers plenty of time to ponder the economics of ultra-long-haul flights – and wonder why we’d want to make it any longer.
From mobile phones to artificial wombs: what a breathtakingly visionary set of predictions from a century ago can teach us about our attempts to forecast the future today.
Billionaire Robert F. Smith made a big splash when he told Morehouse grads he would pay off their student debt. Yet his generosity adheres to a long African American tradition.
The USA has a long colonial history – as does Denmark. The USA has even tried to buy Greenland before. But this time, Greenland isn’t Denmark’s to sell.
A recent article in The Atlantic called for a “new science of progress” - this is dangerous and ignores the academic study of the history of human development.
Just what is Boris Johnson, the UK’s new prime minister: a liberal or conservative? A historian writing a book about Brexit, the focus of much of Johnson’s career, says the man is hard to pin down.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders is leaving her job, and two media scholars reflect on the career of the very first press secretary – a model of openness who respected news reporters.