“Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” is an enduring work—just not of history.

The 15-minute city proposed to shorten commutes and increase convenience. Why has it proven so divisive?

How a spoof conspiracy theory became a perfect study of how misinformation spreads

When Thomas Kuhn coined the term, he wasn’t referring simply to “out of the box” thinking.

How U.S. foreign policy impoverished the country—and boosted corporate profits

His memoir “Knife” answers violence with art, and explores the limits of the imagination.

Beware of theories about human nature based on the study of our earliest ancestors.

Joseph Weizenbaum’s underrated book “Computer Power and Human Reason” cautioned against confusing people with machines.

Environmental and existential threats have changed parenting and fertility itself.

​The Jewish studies professor S​haul Magid thinks it’s possible to resist Zionism without rejecting the state. He calls this “counter-Zionism.”

Three decades since his death, Haring’s writhing images are as popular as ever. That was always the point.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s “On Death and Dying” sparked a revolution in end-of-life care. But soon she began to deny mortality altogether.

New books from Leslie Jamison and Lyz Lenz exude the glow of hard-won independence.

If a computer can write like a person, what does that say about the nature of our own creativity?

Jason De León’s ambitious ethnography paints human smugglers not as inhuman villains but as individuals navigating an inhuman system.

Neighborhoods that once promised prosperity now offer crumbling infrastructure, aged housing stock, and social animus.

What Benedict Anderson’s classic account of nationalism’s origins misses about today’s world.

Why have attacks on gender expression proven such a powerful tool for authoritarians?

When a vaunted writer goes missing in the forest, her translators search for her—and for the meaning of their craft.

From praise for Hitler and Mussolini to friendships with Putin and Orbán, open adoration for authoritarians is a defining feature of the American right.