Without archaeology, there is no way to truly examine economic inequality, its causes, and its consequences over very long time spans on a global scale. Until recently, most grand narratives that purported to tell the story of human inequality over time tended to focus either...

The plant Cannabis sativa is an herbaceous flowering annual that was originally native to central and eastern Asia. It has been cultivated throughout recorded history as a source of fiber for fabric and rope, seed oil, animal feed, and medicine. Evidence exists that some ancient...

President Donald Trump promised to unleash mass deportations on immigrants during his presidential campaign. But he has gone much further, with the disappearing of hundreds of Venezuelan nationals from the United States to El Salvador’s notorious gulag. It’s a warning shot—one that has serious consequences...

On February 4, 2025, Chicago’s business community pushed back against Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposal to raise real estate transfer taxes, adding to the city’s ongoing economic struggles. ...

For the nonhuman animal cause, the 19th century’s end would bring to a close a defining period—a transformative 30-year era beginning in 1866, with the founding of the first animal welfare society. It is a story of activism and activists like George Thorndike Angell,...

Amid the military posturing, economic sanctions, and political power struggles shaping the U.S.-China rivalry, intellectual property (IP) disputes remain a major battleground. In January 2025, Chinese company DeepSeek’s latest AI model helped wipe $1 trillion off the U.S. stock market by demonstrating how...

My birth emerged from European capitalism’s fascistic catastrophe in the 1920s–1940s. That catastrophe also produced Israel’s experiment with settler colonialism in Palestine. This article refers to both these incidents to analyze the current Palestine-Israel catastrophe. ...

Over more than a thousand years, Venice transformed from a modest refuge into a dominant Mediterranean power. Despite various crises and encircling empires, the Venetian Republic avoided foreign rule, revolution, and collapse. ...

Most people learn to count and do basic arithmetic at a young age and don’t give these skills a second thought. But numerosity or numeracy, the ability to think about and use numbers, is more than a basic skill: It is what underlies the human...

We used to have “balloon” debates in school: The hot-air balloon is losing height and, to avoid disaster, people must be jettisoned. To avoid this fate, everybody must justify why they should remain on board and their classmates then vote them “on” or “off.” ...