In her most recent collection of essays, Siri Hustvedt provides a feminist analysis of a range of materials drawn from her own family life (particularly the intimate relationships with her grandmot
“In her quiet, humble way, Goodall and her co-author have masterminded a full-bore assault on the cynicism, emotional exhaustion, and despair of living in a world in the throes of climate c
This powerful little book belongs to the Object Lessons series described by one admirer in the flyleaf as “the most consistently interesting non-fiction book series in America” (Megan Volpert,
Ram Dass (1931–2019), formerly Richard Alpert, is best known as the Harvard psychologist and researcher (his partner was Timothy Leary) who was fired by the university for his controversial experim
Carol Hay notes in her preface the current buzz of conversation around feminism, crediting the #MeToo movement with “laying bare the elephant in the room, skeletons burst from closets, dirty laundr
“Eric Weiner’s The Socrates Express presents universal concepts in an immediately accessible way, reminding us that, in an increasingly frenetic world, there is no more important l
“Churchland’s take on conscience is likely messier than most of us will find comfort in, yearning as we do for moral clarity and certainty in order to make our decisions easier and put our
“Reality isn’t what it appears to be. Our perception of reality is a construction of the brain, and science is achieving what decades ago seemed impossible.”
Rebecca Earle, a professor in history at the University of Warwick, intellectualizes the history of potatoes to portray the tuber’s entanglement with the emergence of modernity, the birth of the li
The very human side of Alan Watts, the East-meets-West scholar of the 1950s and libertine philosopher of the 1960s, comes alive in this wide-ranging collection of letters compiled by his two eldest
Surprisingly few historians and scholars of religion seriously consider what vast numbers of Americans actually believe and experience in their spiritual lives. Jeffrey J.
Great academic philosophers love to write about sports. It gives them an opportunity to opine about issues that average people care about. Why must you follow the rules of the game?
“Whatever life holds in store for me, I will never forget these words: With great power comes great responsibility. This is my gift, my curse. Who am I?
In “Mercury,” the first of four all-too-brief essays that together comprise the final thin volume of his writings, entitled Gratitude, Oliver Sacks writes of his patients “in their ninetie
