A new issue of Essays in History is out, including Jeff Ludwig (Rochester): From Apprentice to Master: Christopher Lasch, Richard Hofstadter, and the Making of History as Social Criticism. The long life of Homo sovieticus: This week’s elections and upheavals in Russia show how hard it is, 20 years after the system collapsed, for the country to put away its Soviet past (and more from Foreign Affairs and more). Camus wrote, “Life is a sum of all your choices” — the same can be said of all the things that just happen to us, and lucky you, Hunch has correlational data for both. 254: That's how many professors could be paid $50,000 annually for 20 years if we reallocated the money the Anaheim Angels used today to sign Albert Pujols. A review of Otto Neurath: The Language of the Global Polis by Nader Vossoughian. How the potato changed the world: Brought to Europe from the New World by Spanish explorers, the lowly potato gave rise to modern industrial agriculture. An excerpt from Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself — and the Consequences for Your Health and Our Medical Future by Harriet A. Washington. Up in Smoke: Did the idea of a legal war die along with Muammar al-Qaddafi? Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson on how to free Congress’s mind: Members of Congress need to change their minds about compromise, or voters will need to change the members of Congress.
