Franz Boas

The Life and Times of Franz Boas

The founder of cultural anthropology, Franz Boas challenged the reigning notions of race and culture.
Mark Twain and James Fenimore Cooper

Mark Twain v. James Fenimore Cooper

A trial in the court of public opinion.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cole_Thomas_The_Course_of_Empire_Destruction_1836.jpg

A Nation in Decline, as Always

What does it really mean for a nation to be “in decline?” And why does it make for such appealing political rhetoric?
A smart toilet

Smart Toilets: The Jetpack of the Bathroom

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are envisioning a toilet that can analyze urine for indicators of disease.
Embarkation of the Pilgrims

Why the Pilgrims Were Actually Able to Survive

If you were reading Bradford's version of events, you might think that the survival of the Pilgrims' settlements was often in danger.
A moose skeleton

America, Where the Dogs Don’t Bark and the Birds Don’t Sing

The Comte de Buffon's thirty-six volume Natural History claimed that America was a land of degeneracy. That enraged Thomas Jefferson.
A family around a thanksgiving dinner table, colored red and blue

Talk about This, Not That

Looking to avoid politics at the holiday dinner table? Food trivia, ground-up mummy pigment, and snake jaws ought to do the trick.
Tofurkey

Vegetarian Thanksgiving Dates Back to the 1900s

Tofu Turkey was created in 1990, but some Americans celebrated Thanksgiving with veggie dishes over a century ago.
A climate protest

How to Sell Climate Denial

Climategate began with the leaking of emails sent to and from climate scientists. Climate skeptics quickly seized on just a few of them
Diagram representing the divergence of species

An Early Review of On the Origin of Species

"Darwin openly and almost scornfully repudiates the whole doctrine of Final Causes. He finds no indication of design or purpose anywhere..."