World

Home World
African Art Gets a Global Stage in Johannesburg
Post

African Art Gets a Global Stage in Johannesburg

Amid a shifting cityscape, artists, cultural workers, and the Continent’s oldest art fair have forged an inspiring path forward Johannesburg’s art scene is a picture of paradox. It is gritty and resilient, but also filled with energy and excitement. It has continuously thrived in the absence of institutional support and infrastructure. While facing the same...

Establishing Power Through Divine Portrayal and Depictions of Violence
Post

Establishing Power Through Divine Portrayal and Depictions of Violence

Today a desert – as far as the eye can see. However, anyone looking more closely will discover hundreds of images carved into the rock. This ancient Egyptian graffiti attests to the fact that a new claim to sovereignty emerged here on the periphery over 5,000 years ago. One of these kings was known as...

The World Learned the Wrong Lesson From Hiroshima
Post

The World Learned the Wrong Lesson From Hiroshima

Reflections on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on its 80th anniversary. Eighty years ago today, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people were immediately killed, and tens of thousands more died in the months and years that followed. The bomb virtually wiped Hiroshima from existence. Paul Tibbets,...

The Psychology of a New Obedience Paradigm
Post

The Psychology of a New Obedience Paradigm

A review of Emilie A. Caspar, “Just Following Orders: Atrocities and the Brain Science of Obedience” (Cambridge University Press, 2024). Why do individuals obey commands to inflict terrible pain or even kill other people, sometimes people they may know personally? Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram’s famous—and controversial—studies in the 1960s suggested the answer lay in “agentic...

University of Houston Archaeologists Discover Tomb of First King of Caracol
Post

University of Houston Archaeologists Discover Tomb of First King of Caracol

Pivotal Find Caps Four Decades of Discovery for the Team of Arlen and Diane Chase Archaeologists from the University of Houston working at Caracol in Belize, Central America have uncovered the tomb of Te K’ab Chaak, the first ruler of this ancient Maya city and the founder of its royal dynasty. Now in ruins, this...

Before Dispersing Out of Africa, Humans Learned to Thrive in Diverse Habitats
Post

Before Dispersing Out of Africa, Humans Learned to Thrive in Diverse Habitats

Today, all non-Africans are known to have descended from a small group of people that ventured into Eurasia after around 50 thousand years ago. However, fossil evidence shows that there were numerous failed dispersals before this time that left no detectable traces in living people. In a paper published in Nature this week, new evidence for the...

Aiming a Blow at Narcos in Colombia – in Pictures
Post

Aiming a Blow at Narcos in Colombia – in Pictures

The South American country has been in the headlines lately, but let’s not forget its captivating topography, which unfortunately, contributes to its challenges.  With cocaine production at an all-time high, Colombia’s government is testing a pacific approach to its narcotics problem: paying farmers to uproot crops of coca, the drug’s main ingredient – All photographs...

Global Anxiety and the Security Dimension: From Personal Despair to Political Violence
Post

Global Anxiety and the Security Dimension: From Personal Despair to Political Violence

In our May analysis, The Silent Epidemic: America’s Growing Anxiety Crisis, we explored how uncertainty and despair—born of economic insecurity, social isolation, and widening inequality—have fueled a striking surge in anxiety across the United States. Yet this mental-health crisis is not confined by borders. Across the globe, societies wrestling with depression, poverty, and disillusionment are...

Why Brazil’s Quilombola Communities Are Still Fighting for the Land They’re Owed
Post

Why Brazil’s Quilombola Communities Are Still Fighting for the Land They’re Owed

Brazil’s quilombola people, the descendants of Africans who escaped slavery, have lived in the nation’s vast Amazon and Atlantic rainforests for centuries. Today, the quilombolas number about 1.3 million people in the country and have cultivated deep ties to their ancestral territories, where they raise their families and steward the land. But these communities remain...