For the most part, history is more complicated and more nuanced than we give it credit for. Hindsight serves to soften and streamline the narrative. Understanding contemporary motivations requires a ...

Modern societies would be impossible without mass-scale production of many man-made materials. We could have an affluent civilization that provides plenty of food, material comforts, and access to ...

THE prison door opens, light streams in, and a harsh voice says: “You are free. You can go!” “Free?” exclaims the prisoner. “What do you mean, free? Where am I to go?” “You are released, the door is ...

As modern civilization’s shelf life expires, more scholars have turned their attention to the decline and fall of civilizations past. Their studies have generated rival explanations of why societies ...