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Sam Haselby

Senior Editor, Aeon+Psyche

Sam is a historian of early America with a particular interest in religion and politics. He was a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and has been a faculty member at the American University of Beirut, the American University in Cairo and at Columbia University in New York City. He was a Senior Executive Producer at Al Jazeera America and is the author of The Origins of American Religious Nationalism (paperback, 2016). @samhaselby

See Sam Haselby’s profile on Psyche

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Written by Sam Haselby

Colourised photo of an elderly Black man with a stern expression, wearing a blue jacket, red cravat and a blue headscarf, holding a cane.

essayHistory

Muslims of early America

Muslims came to America more than a century before Protestants, and in great numbers. How was their history forgotten?

Sam Haselby

The US flag at half-mast on a clear day, symbolising mourning or respect for a significant event or person.

ideaNations and empires

These should be the end times for American patriotism

Sam Haselby

A rural landscape at dusk or dawn with a small illuminated house, a tree, an old tractor, and a car in an open field.

essayHistory

American secular

The founding moment of the United States brought a society newly freed from religion. What went wrong?

Sam Haselby

Edited by Sam Haselby

People relaxing in a lush garden with inflatable flamingos and laptops by a pool.

essayProgress and modernity

Authenticate thyself

Data has created a new and paradoxical social order: the promise of emancipation is made possible by classifying everything

Marion Fourcade & Kieran Healy

Photo of a large conference with a speaker on stage in traditional attire and an audience seated facing a large curved screen.

essayPolitics and government

How to run the world

We need new forms of global diplomacy to transcend the current pathetic bargaining of national and commercial interests

David Van Reybrouck

A hospital room with a patient in a gown and headscarf speaking to a doctor, while a man stands nearby taking notes.

essayIllness and disease

The power of the ‘C’ word

Saying the word ‘cancer’ changes a person’s life and can lead to overtreatment and fear. Is the word too hot to use at all?

Benjamin Chin-Yee

Black and white photo of Adolf Hitler greeting two clergymen surrounded by a crowd in front of a Gothic building.

essayReligion

An unholy alliance

In the 1930s, the rise of Nazism brought centuries of animosity between Europe’s Catholics and Protestants to an end. Why?

Udi Greenberg

Painting of blind men with sticks leading one another, one has fallen, landscape and church in the background.

essayThinkers and theories

The French liar

René Descartes, the founder of modern philosophy, was furiously condemned by his contemporaries. Why did they fear him?

Sandrine Parageau

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

essayTechnology 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 and white photo of a woman and man sitting on a sofa holding a newspaper with a front-page story about a UFO sighting.

essayHistory of science

Incredible testimonies

In the 1980s, thousands of Americans began to suspect they may have been abducted by aliens. What happened?

Greg Eghigian

essayHistory of science

A nasogenital tale

A bizarre theory (and a gory surgery) in fin-de-siècle Vienna help us get a grip on how science and medicine actually work

Urte Laukaityte

Ancient Chinese painting of a man under a tree with a trail of smoke coming from his mouth containing scenes of various figures, surrounded by miniature figures.

essayReligion

Demonology

By turns benign and malign, powerful and vulnerable, earthbound and aerial, daimons across the world resemble one another

David Gordon White

An elderly couple sit beside a child standing next to a canal with bare trees behind them. The man talks to the child and has a walking stick beside him.

essayDemography and migration

The vanishing of youth

The precipitous decline of birthrates throughout the world poses a serious threat to humanity. What is to be done?

Victor Kumar

Photo of a black and white moth with speckled wings against a dark background.

essayGenetics

Beanbag genetics

Today a bitter dispute about the nature of biology is underway. A simple bag of beans may be what tips the balance

Zachary B Hancock

Photo of a rural scene: a man and child walk with ducks past a military motorcycle and three soldiers in a field.

essayNations and empires

Shame and revolution

Vietnam’s potent and storied anticolonialism is founded upon a unique sense of national shame

Kevin D Pham