Showing 1 - 8 of 8
A 14th century warning for the 21st century
News, Published on 12/02/2024
» A history student told me recently that he loves researching the 20th century but can't see the point of the Middle Ages. I responded that it can be a big help to understanding our own times -- very troubled times -- to view them in the context even of the remote past.
We can move to a post-privilege era. Who's first?
News, Published on 06/09/2023
» Privilege is often carved into walls and etched into the landscape.
We should let China spy on us
News, David Fickling, Published on 22/04/2019
» Even as the US and China seem headed toward a truce on trade, their rivalry is heating up in other areas.
China is blowing an opportunity with Meng's arrest
News, Published on 21/12/2018
» China is blowing the geopolitical opportunity of a lifetime. There has probably never been a better moment to undo America's greatest strategic advantage by dividing the US from its global network of democratic allies, many of which are horrified by President Trump's rhetoric and policies and deeply worried about Washington's staying power. Yet, Beijing is doing its best to remind that democratic world that it has far more to fear from a hegemonic China than from an erratic America.
Cape Town may soon run out of water
News, Mihir Sharma, Published on 25/01/2018
» April 22, Earth Day, might have a bit of extra significance this year. It might be the day that, for the first time, a great world city runs out of water.
Why China muzzled an internet sensation
News, Adam Minter, Published on 26/04/2016
» Last autumn, Papi Jiang, a 29-year-old graduate student in Beijing, began posting short, satirical and occasionally profane monologues about daily life in urban China to social media. Within a couple of months, she'd racked up tens of millions of views, earned nearly US$2 million (70 million baht) in private funding and raised hopes that online celebrities might offer a new revenue stream for China's internet companies. Then, last week, it all ended: Papi Jiang's videos abruptly disappeared.
Trump, the un-American strongman
News, Pankaj Mishra, Published on 29/03/2016
» US politics today presents, to this foreign observer at least, a very un-American spectacle. A country originally built on immigration is awash with popular hatred against immigrants. A candidate of the right rails against free trade and foreigners, while that of the left proclaims his faith in socialism. Xenophobia is rife. Class war seems perilously close to the surface.
'Hunger Games' problems an echo of our own reality
News, Published on 01/12/2014
» I headed out in the snow on the night before Thanksgiving to watch The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1. I enjoyed the film, although perhaps in a the-third-Star-Wars-movie-was-fun-but-not-as-good-as-the-second-and-I-don't-believe-the-Ewoks-could-have-beaten-the-Imperial-stormtroopers sort of way.