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Society

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

Animals and humans Anthropology Archaeology Automation and robotics Cities Demography and migration Economic history Economics Education Environmental history Fairness and equality Future of technology Gender Global history History History of technology Human rights and justice Information and communication Making Nations and empires Politics and government Poverty and development Progress and modernity Public health Race and ethnicity Religion The ancient world The environment The future War and peace Work

LatestPopular

3D rendering of an ancient water clock with zodiac signs and blue water flowing into a container on a wooden surface.

video

Engineering

How water-based clocks revolutionised the way we measure time

10 minutes

An elderly person lying in a hospital bed in a bright room with a walker and a window nearby.

essay

Death

Freedom over death

Death is a certainty. But choosing how and when we depart is a modest opportunity for freedom – and dignity

Michael Cholbi

Black and white photo of a woman sitting in front of a bookshelf wearing a light blouse and speaking.

video

Anthropology

Margaret Mead explains why the family was entering a brave new world in this 1959 film

29 minutes

A large white cathedral with golden domes near a river, surrounded by trees with autumn colours.

essay

Architecture

The replica and the original

Architectural copies of lost structures require reckoning with history and heritage. At what cost is the past rebuilt?

Elizabeth Kostina

Illustration of a crab using a laptop, captioned “Homo-crustaceous digitalis” on a textured background.

essay

The future

Homo crustaceous

‘Everything becomes crab’ is more than an absurd meme. The crab is a deep symbol of our devil’s bargain with technology

Michael Garfield

Aerial photo of workers harvesting oranges, loading crates onto a tractor in an orchard.

video

Demography and migration

In California’s farmlands, immigrant workers share their stories of toil and hope

17 minutes

Photo of a rustic stone house with a shaded garden path lined with lush greenery and flowering plants under a clear blue sky.

essay

History of ideas

From scattered traces

How the ideas circulating among one noblewoman’s coterie in 16th-century Dubrovnik anticipated modern feminist thought

Luka Boršić

Photo of ornate 18th-century women’s shoes with floral embroidery and green trim on a neutral background.

essay

Design and fashion

Walk in these

Shoes are deeply personal, literally moulded to our lives. But they create our social lives as much as express them

Matthew McCormack

essay

Music

The beat of goombay

Diasporas are made of vast constellations of countless people, fused together through memory, meaning – and music

Salwa Halloway

Satellite image of South Dakota with glowing yellow lines representing data or energy pathways overlaid.

video

Ecology and environmental sciences

Join endangered whooping cranes on their perilous migratory path over North America

6 minutes

Cropped illustration of a person in a pink robe with orange patterns walking beside a horse, surrounded by grass and flowers.

essay

Gender

Taliban bride

Women in Afghanistan are prisoners in their own homes. This is the story of Marjan, married at 12 to a Taliban fighter

Zala & Asad Nariman

Vintage painting of a man with glowing eyes surrounded by floating spheres on a decorative background.

essay

Stories and literature

Merveilleux-scientifique

With brain swaps and death rays, a little-known French sci-fi genre explored science’s dark possibilities a century ago

Fleur Hopkins-Loféron

Photo of a woman in a floral headscarf with a man in the background against a rural autumn landscape under a clear sky.

video

Home

Life moves slowly in a Romanian mountain village, shaped by care and the seasons

13 minutes

A person in a hi-vis vest sitting outdoors at a table with a drink, looking into the distance.

essay

Technology and the self

The unseen

Our crisis of work and technology is one in which too many people feel that nobody sees them as a fellow human being

Allison J Pugh

Black birds flying over snowy mountains with dramatic cloudy skies in the background.

essay

Evolution

Empire of flight

They have big brains, long childhoods and sociable, curious minds. So why haven’t birds developed complex culture?

Antone Martinho-Truswell

Weathered hands holding a small, carved stone tool with intricate details, set against a blurred background.

video

Archaeology

At a prehistoric pigment mine, researchers glimpse our earliest moments in the Americas

25 minutes

Medieval painting of a circular walled city with towers and a large lamb statue on a roof, surrounded by countryside.

essay

Political philosophy

The allure of autarky

Liberal thinkers are shocked that nations are once again isolating from the world. The real surprise would be if they didn’t

Ben Chu

A beaver dam on a calm lake surrounded by dense evergreen forest with mountains faintly visible in the background.

essay

Animals and humans

Animals taught us culture

Prehistoric humans didn’t create art and architecture out of nothing. They took inspiration from the nonhuman world

Sarah Newman

Photo of an older man with white hair and beard in a cityscape with tall modern buildings in the background.

video

Economics

A tour of New York’s gaudiest neighbourhood with the Marxist geographer David Harvey

13 minutes

Abstract painting of textured forms resembling fibres and foliage overlaid on an antique map background.

video

Art

Defying classification, fantastical artworks reframe the racism of Carl Linnaeus

8 minutes

Futuristic digital artwork of Earth with two large transparent rings arching over it in space.

video

Engineering

Building a prosperous future demands bold ideas. These are some of the boldest

40 minutes

Aerial photo of a large circular crater with a dark centre in a brown landscape, resembling an impact site.

video

Environmental history

In Kazakhstan, ‘atomic lakes’ still scar the landscape decades after Soviet nuclear tests

13 minutes

Three ancient human skeletons laid side by side in an archaeological excavation site.

essay

Archaeology

Deep time and the revenant

In enigmatic burials, crafted to bind the bodies within, we can see how truly ancient our fears of the undead must be

Rebecca Batley

Aerial photo of turquoise ocean with a sinuous sand-coloured formation running diagonally, creating a striking contrast.

essay

Oceans and water

An oceanic tempo

An appreciation of the immensity embedded in the ocean’s cycles offers a way to reimagine our relationship with time

James Bradley