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
Written by Sam Haselby
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History
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
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Nations and empires
These should be the end times for American patriotism
Sam Haselby
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History
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
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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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Metaphysics
Both one and yet distinct
Being a twin (as our author knows) cracks open our ideas of the perfectly bounded self and might liberate us all
Helena de Bres
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Religion
Secularism in Iran
Postcolonial intellectuals and Iran’s rulers agree that secularism is just Western imperialism in disguise. They are wrong
Patrick Hassan & Hossein Dabbagh
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Education
The exam that broke society
Keju, China’s incredibly difficult civil service test, strengthened the state at the cost of freedom and creativity
Yasheng Huang
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Religion
Praying in shoes
The Sunni movement of Salafism was born at the beginning of the 20th century, with the goal of modelling life on the 7th
Aaron Rock-Singer
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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
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Nations and empires
Settler colonialism
Displacing and destroying peoples by colonisation is not just a historical Western evil but a global and contemporary one
Lachlan McNamee
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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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Knowledge
The ends of knowledge
Academics need to think harder about the purpose of their disciplines and whether some of those should come to an end
Rachael Scarborough King & Seth Rudy
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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
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Work
Freedom at work
There is always a demand for more jobs. But what makes a job good? For that, Immanuel Kant has an answer
Tyler Re
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Global history
The polycrisis
Is this the word we need to describe unprecedented convergences between ecological, political and economic strife?
Ville Lähde