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Society

Essays and videos on social issues, history, political life and the future
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essay

Economic history

Credit card nation

Americans have always borrowed, but how exactly did their lives become so entangled with the power of plastic cards?

Sean H Vanatta

An oversized yellow plastic revolver gun displayed outside a brightly painted shop. There are palm trees in the background
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essay

History of technology

Why America fell for guns

The US today has extraordinary levels of gun ownership. But to see this as a venerable tradition is to misread history

Megan Kang

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Thinkers and theories

Our tools shape our selves

For Bernard Stiegler, a visionary philosopher of our digital age, technics is the defining feature of human experience

Bryan Norton

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video

Engineering

A close-up look at electronic paper reveals its exquisite patterns – and limitations

9 minutes

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essay

History of technology

Indexing the information age

Over a weekend in 1995, a small group gathered in Ohio to unleash the power of the internet by making it navigable

Monica Westin

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video

Design and fashion

The ornate, the aromatic, the cruel – Valentine’s cards before the age of Hallmark

16 minutes

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video

Medicine

Why surgery and barbering were one occupation in the Middle Ages

6 minutes

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essay

Architecture

The subtle art of elevation

Architectural drawing speaks of mathematical precision, but its roots lie in the theological exegesis of a prophetic book

Karl Kinsella

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essay

History of technology

A silken web

From its mythic beginnings in a Chinese garden, the story of silk is a window into how weaving has shaped human history

Peter Frankopan, Marie-Louise Nosch & Feng Zhao

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video

Computing and artificial intelligence

A scientist’s poor eyesight helped fuel a revolution in computer ‘vision’

9 minutes

A woman in a pink coat and carrying a pink umbrella walks past a protestor carrying a yellow placard appealing to people to use cash
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essay

Economics

Going cashless

It’s not in the interests of the ordinary person but it’s not a conspiracy either. A cashless society is a system run amok

Brett Scott

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video

Design and fashion

From spark of inspiration to final press – how William Blake built a book of poetry

8 minutes

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essay

Economics

Finance as alchemy

Finance fraud is not a deviation from an essentially rational system but a window onto the reality-distortion of markets

Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou

In the foreground a European mother cradles a newborn baby as an Indian woman looks on from the right
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essay

Bioethics

Reproductive technologies

Infertility treatments aim to improve women’s lives. But they risk tying womanhood to the toxic expectation of motherhood

Gulzaar Barn

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video

Design and fashion

The mundane becomes mesmerising in this deep dive into segmented displays

14 minutes

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video

Mathematics

How a curious question about colouring maps changed mathematics forever

9 minutes

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essay

Economic history

A gospel of enjoyment

The French idea of the good life doesn’t always make rational economic sense. So much the worse for traditional economics

Charly Coleman

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video

Art

From a pencil sketch to cherubs dancing in stone – recreating a Donatello work

7 minutes

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video

History of technology

See the Mediterranean as it was captured in some of the earliest surviving photographs

20 minutes

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essay

History of technology

Ingenious librarians

A group of 1970s campus librarians foresaw our world of distributed knowledge and research, and designed search tools for it

Monica Westin

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video

Thinkers and theories

Is simulation theory a way to shirk responsibility for the world we’ve created?

13 minutes

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video

Dance and theatre

Leaf through Shakespeare’s First Folio for a riveting journey into theatre history

13 minutes

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video

Information and communication

Mapping data visualisation’s meteoric rise from Victorian London to today

6 minutes

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video

Philosophy of mind

An enigmatic ‘story of consciousness’ told through 19th-century engravings

7 minutes