From the Journal of World History, Peter Stearns (George Mason): Social History and World History: Prospects for Collaboration; Kenneth Pomeranz (UC-Irvine): Social History and World History: From Daily Life to Patterns of Change; and Merry Wiesner-Hanks (UW-Milwaukee): World History and the History of Women, Gender, and Sexuality; and a review of Economic and Political Contention in Comparative Perspective by Maria Kousis and Charles Tilly.
From the Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy, Nir Eyal (Harvard): Egalitarian Justice and Innocent Choice. From The Oxonian Review, a review of Amartya Sen's Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny and Kwame Anthony Appiah's Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. From Politics and Culture, a review of Cosmopolitan Style: Modernism Beyond the Nation, and a review of Adorno and the Political by Espen Hammer. A review of Berlin Childhood Around 1900 and On Hashish by Walter Benjamin.
A review of Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium. A review of Arguing About Gods. With God in His Sights: Christopher Hitchens takes on Gandhi, Billy Graham—and the Big Guy (and an excerpt from God is Not Great).
From Wired, an article on quantum somputing's big challenge: Quantum wiring. Can a seventeen-mile-long collider unlock the universe? Elizabeth Kolbert investigates. Envision This: Mathematicians design an invisible tunnel, an electromagnetic "wormhole" that results from turning invisible sphere inside out. Star Goes Out Big Time: Astronomers track a new kind of supernova, the brightest ever recorded. Polymers Are Forever: There was hardly any prior to 1945, but it may now be the most ubiquitous man-made substance on Earth.
From Discover, is there a genetic basis to race after all? It may not be a question of which genes, but how they behave. Ancient Australians were a people apart: Genetic evidence confirms Aborigines lived in isolation for thousands of years. Sex on the brain: Survey reveals brain differences between the sexes. Research suggests women would endure most pain for a best friend. Does the time of year in which a child is conceived influence future academic achievement?
From Inside Higher Ed, battle lines on U.S. News: 12 presidents call for boycott of survey of reputations, but magazine’s editor says it will survey others if presidents abstain. Cupid and Colleges: Students who truly prefer Tufts over Amherst or Columbia would have a way to show it. Teaching recent history from opposite perspectives: At Georgetown, it's Feith vs. Tenet and policy vs. intelligence. Bush's favorite historian: British author Alistair Horne explains what Pinochet, Sharon and Bush have all taken from his work, why peace means getting rid of the priests, and why Iraq is the wrong war in the wrong place. Hail to the Analysand: Be afraid of the leader who refuses to look in the mirror, Freud argued. And a purple patch on the lessons of history by Barbara Tuchman
