After 300 years of breathtaking innovation, people aren’t massively unemployed or indentured by machines. But to suggest how this could change, some economists have pointed to the defunct career of the second-most-important species in U.S. economic history: the horse. For many centuries, people created technologies that made the horse more productive and more valuable—like plows […]
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Posted inNonfiction, Story
How Rival Gardens of Eden in Iraq Survived ISIS, Dwindling Tourists, And Each Other
Against all odds, Iraq’s religious tourism infrastructure has endured.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
I Would Rather Be Herod’s Pig: The History of a Taboo
The story of how pigs became the world’s most divisive meal.
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
The Aristocratic Chef: An Interview with Daniel Le Bailly de La Falaise
Daniel Le Bailly de La Falaise on private caterings for celebrities, the sexuality of a peach, and how the simplicity of food is the ultimate luxury.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
I Would Rather Be Herod’s Pig: The History of a Taboo
The story of how pigs became the world’s most divisive meal.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
What Nuclear Winter Would Do to the World’s Food Supply
Let me take the most likely one: the nuclear winter case. Say two countries that both have access to nuclear weapons get very angry at each other, and then retaliate, destroying most of the major cities in the opposite country. The vast bulk of humanity would survive, eventually. Say maybe we lost 5 percent of […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
When the Messiah Came to America, She Was a Woman
On the rise and fall of American utopia.
Posted inNonfiction
The Fullness of a Moment
Half a century ago, the Hall of New York State Environment in the American Museum of Natural History was not only the future of museum design, but also, one man hoped, the future of democracy itself.
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
A Family, a Fruit Stand, and Survival on $4.50 a Day
If it’s not for sale here, Nicaraguans say, then you can’t buy it anywhere.
Posted inNonfiction
What the Tech Industry Can Teach Agriculture
Myers contends that, when applied to plants, patents are stifling. They discourage sharing, and sharing is the foundation of successful breeding. That’s because his work is essentially just assisting natural evolution: He mates one plant with another, which in turn makes new combinations of genes from which better plants are selected. The more plants there […]
