Many landowners view themselves as environmental stewards. But can the environment ever be protected within the frame of private property?
Tag: Princeton University Press
Poe: America’s “Artificer”
Many view Edgar Allen Poe as a uniquely gloomy, mad writer. But what if Poe was normal, simply representative of a gloomy, mad era?
Can Anthropology Look to the Future?
Transhumanists want to transcend humanity. Where does that leave anthropology?
Freedom for Whom?
What right does a society have to extoll freedom as its highest virtue if that same society is dependent on the unfreedom of others?
The Manifest Destiny of Computing
Today is overwhelmingly defined by white-supremacist violence and the whiteness of AI technology. Can seeing them together help defeat them both?
Leaving Orthodoxy, Again
Losing faith in Orthodox Judaism is an old story. But today it’s often the “heretics” who rely on faith, and the “faithful” who draw on science.
Academia Trained You—but the World Needs You
Does leaving the academy mean someone failed? Or does it mean, instead, that their scholarly strengths can now be made useful to the public?
What Happens When a Metaphor Becomes Real?
The humanities can reveal the truth of the world’s crises, everything from contagions like the pandemic to apocalypses like right-wing violence.
How to Educate an American Citizen
What should schools teach about the Constitution? And should they teach feelings, aspiration, or fact?
Politics—Not Psychology—Drives Politics
Social psychologists know conservative media politicizes its viewers. But by focusing on individuals, they miss how to enact political change.
We Can’t Look Away from the Courts: An Interview with Matthew Clair
"I see disadvantaged defendants’ cultivated expertise as accurate, even though it is often invalidated and punished."
Personal Comfort, Planetary Costs
When an increasingly uncomfortable climate forces more of life indoors, who might be forced to bear the costs?
Philanthropy and the “Jewish Continuity Crisis”
Today, Jewish philanthropy—like all philanthropy—is big business, thanks to US philanthropy’s torturous entanglement with US capitalism.
What Does a “Click” Count For?
In the digital world, metrics mean everything. But who interprets just what they mean changes across organizations, countries, and cultures.
The Human Nature of Disaster
A storm is never just wind or rain. Our natural problems are social problems. The solutions to them must be social, too.
Good Teachers Know That Bodies Matter
Students must choose to do the work that will facilitate learning, so teachers must give them reasons to make that choice, again and again.
Immigration: What We’ve Done, What We Must Do
Once, abolitionists had to imagine a world without slavery. Can we similarly envision a world where migrants are offered justice?
On Our Nightstands: February 2021
A behind-the-scenes look at what Public Books editors and staff have been reading this month.
What Counts, These Days, in Baseball?
As technologies of quantification and video capture grow more sophisticated, is baseball changing? Do those changes have moral implications?
How the Welfare State Became the Neoliberal Order
Today's neoliberalism emerged when US policymakers built New Deal–style projects abroad—for private gain rather than the public good.