Essay/History American secular The founding moment of the United States brought a society newly freed from religion. What went wrong? Sam Haselby
Essay/History ‘Here we are all the same’ The US Constitution guaranteed freedom of religion, but the fight for religious equality was only just beginning Richard D Brown
volume_up play_arrow pause Essay/Cognition & Intelligence Had a good think lately? Not busy-work, ticking off to-do lists or keeping-up-with-stuff. Just sitting. And thinking. Is it so hard? André Spicer
Essay/Anthropology The scalp from Sand Creek Even after museums return human remains pillaged from a massacre in 1864, can repatriation heal the wounds of history? Chip Colwell
volume_up play_arrow pause Idea/History For centuries European aristocrats proudly claimed foreign ancestry Blake Smith
Idea/Law & Justice How men continue to interrupt even the most powerful women Tonja Jacobi & Dylan Schweers
Essay/Politics & Government American dreaming 3.0 Embrace dreams as a counter to the naive realism of politics today, and they could become a potent democratic force Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen
volume_up play_arrow pause Idea/Space Exploration Space exploration is still the brightest hope-bringer we have Earle Kyle
Essay/Politics & Government Democracy needs politeness Autocrats shouted, cursed, and bullied, while American revolutionaries used politeness as a tool of radical politics Steven Bullock
volume_up play_arrow pause Essay/Economics Platonically irrational How much did Plato know about behavioural economics and cognitive biases? Pretty much everything, it turns out Nick Romeo
volume_up play_arrow pause Essay/Economics What is human capital? Human capital theory was invented as an ideological weapon in the Cold War. Now it is helping to Uberise the world of work Peter Fleming
volume_up play_arrow pause Idea/Politics & Government How Robert Nozick put a purple prose bomb under analytical philosophy Brad Baranowski
Idea/Economics When faced with so-called ‘progressive business’, stay skeptical Christian O Christiansen
Essay/Music Now THAT was music One grim day (when youth is over) you find that new music gets on your nerves. But why do our musical tastes freeze over? Lary Wallace
volume_up play_arrow pause Essay/Politics & Government Age of sincerity In politics, as in militant religion, the performance of sincerity is everything, no matter whether right or wrong Faisal Devji
Idea/Internet & Communication Should you feel sad about the demise of the handwritten letter? Siobhan Phillips
volume_up play_arrow pause Essay/Medical Ethics Intersex rights Children born with in-between sex development are subject to surgeries that many believe violate their human rights Alice Dreger
volume_up play_arrow pause Essay/History A much-maligned Mughal The great king Aurangzeb is among the most hated men in Indian history. A historian claims he’s been unjustly demonised Audrey Truschke
volume_up play_arrow pause Idea/History A nation apologises for wrongdoing: is that a category mistake? Danielle Celermajer
Idea/Education The slow professor can dish out a more nutritious education Barbara Seeber & Maggie Berg
volume_up play_arrow pause Idea/Politics & Government It wasn’t just hate. Fascism offered robust social welfare Sheri Berman
volume_up play_arrow pause Essay/Politics & Government When nations apologise National apologies are a big deal: they acknowledge the past to help move everyone forward. No wonder they’re so hard Edwin Battistella
Idea/Politics & Government There’s a Green Card-holder at the heart of Greek philosophy David V Johnson
Idea/Politics & Government Why bureaucrats matter in the fight to preserve the rule of law Melissa Lane
volume_up play_arrow pause Essay/Political Philosophy The power thinker Original, painstaking, sometimes frustrating and often dazzling. Foucault’s work on power matters now more than ever Colin Koopman
Essay/History What is global history now? Historians cheered globalism with work about cosmopolitans and border-crossing, but the power of place never went away Jeremy Adelman
volume_up play_arrow pause Essay/Economics In praise of cash Cash might be grungy, unfashionable and corruptible, but it is still a great public good, important for rich and poor alike Brett Scott
Idea/Poverty & Development There is a simple way to improve the world’s food systems Peter A Coclanis
volume_up play_arrow pause Essay/Economics End of a golden age Unprecedented growth marked the era from 1948 to 1973. Economists might study it forever, but it can never be repeated. Why? Marc Levinson