It’s said that the best jokes, like the best mysteries, are ones where the punchline is contained in the set-up. Jordan Peele's Get Out offers a sinister reworking of this maxim.

Russian serfdom and American slavery ended within two years of each other; the defenders of these systems of bondage surprisingly shared many of the same arguments.

Well-researched stories from around the web that bridge the gap between news and scholarship. Brought to you each Tuesday from the editors of JSTOR Daily.

In the early years of food stamps the goal wasn't necessarily to feed America's poor. The idea was to buttress the price of food after the decline in crop prices had created a crisis in rural America.

Many doctors embraced anesthesia, but critics in the medical community protested its use, giving rise to what's known as the “ether controversy.”

In a world full of wild insect defenses, bombardier beetles stand out for the violent chemical reaction they employ to deter enemies.

According to one historian, the year 1900 was “the zenith of glove-wearing,” when any self-respecting Victorian (British or American) wouldn’t be caught dead without covered hands.

Pinker on the dark side of political correctness, the differences between men and women, the media's violence bias, and his differences with Bill Gates on artificial intelligence.

Between 1996 and 2003, a folklorist studied the connection between handlooms (technology), sari makers (producers), and sari wearers (consumers) in the ancient city of Banaras.

It’s not easy to measure a mountain. Mount Everest's height has been known since the middle of the nineteenth century, but how did they figure it out with no altimeters or GPS?