When the Truman Campaign Used a Song from an All-Black Show
"I'm Just Wild about Harry" originated with the songwriting team of Sissle and Blake and first appeared in the Broadway musical Shuffle Along.
How Accurate Are Prediction Markets?
Will I get COVID-19? Will I have a job in three months’ time? Will the shops have what I need? Research indicates that markets might not know best.
Was Russia Destined to Be an Autocracy?
The most important factors that steered Russia away from democracy, says one scholar, weren't inevitable.
Quiet Struggle Means Resistance without Protest
A lone resister is easy to take down, but there is safety in numbers, in conspiracies of silence, in refusals to testify against one's neighbors.
Progress Is Not the Same as Westernization
Jalal Al-e Ahmad, a political and literary writer in pre-revolutionary Iran, had ideas about how his country could modernize in its own, non-Western way.
Joseph Priestley, Radical Inventor
How scientist and soda water inventor Joseph Priestley came to be an enemy of the state.
Mahatma Gandhi, Master Mediator
Gandhi's legacy helped shape independent India, if in sometimes indirect ways.
Voltairine de Cleyre: American Radical
She was a notable anarchist thinker and speaker, but history has largely forgotten Voltairine de Cleyre.