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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

Photo of people walking outdoors carrying trays of plants, surrounded by bushes and greenery.

essay

Meaning and the good life

Welcome to the Chaoscene

The climate crisis is here. In order to thrive in these dangerous and precarious times, we must build resilient communities

Rupert Read

Aerial photo of a snowy town with colourful buildings and a vast frozen landscape in the background.

essay

The environment

On unstable ground

A ‘great reshuffle’ of the land is underway. It will force us to reconsider traditional ideas of property and ownership

Michael Albertus

A person in a hard hat and coveralls surrounded by thick white smoke, obscuring most of the view.

video

Fairness and equality

There’s a dirty side to clean energy in the metal-rich mountains of South Africa

10 minutes

Photo of a gibbon mother holding her baby in a lush green forest setting.

video

Animals and humans

Villagers struggle to keep their beloved, endangered ape population afloat

19 minutes

Heron standing on a small patch of greenery surrounded by calm water with a lush forest in the background.

essay

Earth science and climate

The planetary fix

Despite decades of inaction we can avert the climate Hellocene and restore the atmosphere to keep our world habitable

Rob Jackson

A beach with a white S U V, chairs and a bird in the foreground, and a rocket on a launch pad in the background.

video

Fairness and equality

Visit the small Texas community that lives in the shadow of SpaceX launches

14 minutes

Photo of a person in a winter coat and beanie looking at a snow-covered town, with mountains in the background.

video

Earth science and climate

There’s a ‘climate bomb’ ticking beneath the Arctic ice. How can we prepare?

8 minutes

Photo of people in a forest, some kneeling and examining plants, others standing and walking, all surrounded by lush greenery.

essay

Food and drink

The joy of foraging

Offering an escape from industrial foods, foraging nourishes the soul and body, but it needs democratic access to the land

Nikita Sud

Black-and-white photo of a woman holding her child on a stone pier, with small wooden boats and a shoreline in the background.

essay

Film and visual culture

The risk of beauty

W Eugene Smith’s photos of the Minamata disaster are both exquisite and horrifying. How might we now look at them?

Joanna Pocock

Silhouette of a person walking through a spray of water at sunset with cars and buildings in the background.

essay

Neuroscience

The melting brain

It’s not just the planet and not just our health – the impact of a warming climate extends deep into our cortical fissures

Clayton Page Aldern

Aerial view of a large pipeline construction site with machinery and vehicles cutting through green fields and hills under a partly cloudy sky.

essay

Nature and landscape

Land loneliness

To survive, we are asked to forget that our lands and bodies are being violated, policed, ripped up, silenced, sacrificed

Kelsey Day

Residential street with terraced houses and power plant cooling towers in the background, one of which has a mural depicting a sun and mountains.

video

Food and drink

Local tensions simmer amid a potato salad contest at the Czech-Polish border

14 minutes

Painting of a riverside scene with a large windmill, boats on the water, and three women standing on the bank next to a dock, under cloudy sky.

essay

History of technology

Learning to love monsters

Windmills were once just machines on the land but now seem delightfully bucolic. Could wind turbines win us over too?

Stephen Case

Black and white photograph depicts a flood with rising water levels in a residential area. Strong currents and waves are visible, and houses in the background are partially submerged. Floodwater covers much of the landscape, with a lone tree and partial wooden structure in the foreground.

essay

The future

The disruption nexus

Moments of crisis, such as our own, are great opportunities for historic change, but only under highly specific conditions

Roman Krznaric

A person and a dog look out from a window of a blue house during snowfall. The house has an external staircase covered with snow on the left, and a snow-covered porch on the right. The scene is set on a snowy day, with visible accumulation on the ground and surfaces.

video

Technology and the self

In the town once named Asbestos, locals ponder the voids industry left in its wake

16 minutes

View from space of Europe at night, showing bright city lights and the Northern Lights in the distance. The image features a clear outline of countries and coastlines illuminated by artificial light, with a dark sky speckled with stars overhead.

essay

Ecology and environmental sciences

Dominion

To take care of the Earth, humans must recognise that we are both a part of the animal kingdom and its dominant power

Hugh Desmond

Image of an offshore wind turbine in the sea with a large LNG ship in the background under a partly cloudy sky in calm waters.

essay

The environment

Decoupling

We need to find a way for human societies to prosper while the planet heals. So far we can’t even think clearly about it

Ville Lähde

A man and a woman in formal evening dress but with giant fish heads covering their faces are pictured beneath a bridge on the foreshore of a river

essay

The environment

Emergency action

Could civil disobedience be morally obligatory in a society on a collision course with climate catastrophe?

Rupert Read

A doorway within a metallic-like surface surrounded by hazard tape leads to a low-lit tunnel

essay

The future

Prehistory in the atomic age

To understand the terrifying futures unleashed by nuclear weapons, we urgently need to return to the deep past

Maria Stavrinaki

Modern white tower building amidst green landscape with winding path and trees, hills and a clear sky in the background.

video

Architecture

‘I listen to the land’ – poetry and greenery intertwine in Emilio Ambasz’s architecture

9 minutes

A row of traditional British terrace buildings with shops on the ground level, under a clear blue sky with some white clouds.

essay

Architecture

The new architecture wars

Traditionalist and modernist architecture are both mass-produced, industrial and international. Is there an alternative?

Owen Hatherley

Artwork depicting a silhouette of a person wearing a floral headband, with a natural background of plants and blurred scenery.

video

Ecology and environmental sciences

The ancient Hawaiian myth that sparked a modern ecological breakthrough

10 minutes

Woman standing at the edge of a foggy forest valley, with dense green trees and mist enveloping the background. She is wearing a shawl and bag.

essay

Anthropology

A glimpse of the world’s heart

I wanted to visit Colombia’s sacred mountains. But there are some places we cannot go – and some things we cannot know

Nick Hunt

A man in a uniform stands in a garden filled with tall green plants and yellow flowers, smoking a cigarette.

essay

Nations and empires

Dream of the Russian tropics

Imperial Russia had little access to the bountiful tropics that other empires enjoyed. So it created its own in the Caucasus

Oleksandr Polianichev