archive

You might get sticker shock

A new issue of Broken Pencil is out, including Lindsay Gibb on the secret lives of puppets. From The Hedgehog Review, does religious pluralism require secularism? A symposium, including Charles Taylor on the meaning of secularism; Rajeev Bhargava on states, religious diversity, and the crisis of secularism; and Craig Calhoun on rethinking secularism. How to mourn: Meghan O'Rourke on Roland Barthes' beautiful, private meditation on his mother's death. From The Economist, a review of Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories by Simon Winchester; and a review of A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment by Philipp Blom. Warning: You might get sticker shock from reading several recent health studies. Is democracy necessary for economic success? The Skeptic's Skeptic: In the battle for ideas, scientists could learn from Christopher Hitchens. From Ctheory, an interview with Brian Francis Slattery on the relationship between science fiction and economics, globalization, and how eerie it is to predict the future. The first chapter from The Faces of Terrorism: Social and Psychological Dimensions by Neil J. Smelser. A life beyond reason: He is not a lesson, nor a signifier — he is a severely disabled 11-year-old boy, and he is loved. A review of Caribbean Middlebrow: Leisure Culture and the Middle Class by Belinda Edmondson. A review of Jazz Icons: Heroes, Myths and the Jazz Tradition by Tony Whyton (and more). The longest home run ever: It may not come in our lifetime, but its measurements are knowable. A review of Cathedrals of Science: The Personalities and Rivalries That Made Modern Chemistry by Patrick Coffey. Germany’s Angela Merkel stirred up a hornet’s nest when she decried “multiculturalism”, but that reaction suggests the hornets hadn’t been paying attention.