social science — Bunk History

George Gallup reenacting his polling methods on a talk show.

The Problems with Polls

Political polling’s greatest achievement is its complete co-opting of our understanding of public opinion, which we can no longer imagine without it.

by Samuel Earle via New York Review of Books on September 26, 2024

A man walking down an unpaved street in an impoverished Appalachian neighborhood.

What the Best Places in America Have in Common

The Index of Deep Disadvantage reflects a more holistic view of how we can define "poverty."

by H. Luke Shaefer, Timothy J. Nelson, Kathryn J. Edin via The Atlantic on August 5, 2023

W.E.B. DuBois

How W. E. B. Du Bois Helped Pioneer African American Humanist Thought

On the complex relationship between Black Americans and the Black church.

by Christopher Cameron via Literary Hub on July 27, 2023

The cover of the United Nations FAO-Unesco Soil Map of the World, 1974.

The Earth for Man

Redistributing land was once central to global development efforts—and it should be today.

by Jo Guldi via Boston Review on May 3, 2023

Illustration of the Supreme Court and a school house mirroring each other. The Supreme Court sits atop a dollar bill, and the school house is upside down on the other side of the bill.

The Racist Idea that Changed American Education

How a landmark Supreme Court decision was shaped by the racist idea that poor children can’t learn.

by Matt Barnum via Vox on February 13, 2023

Sketch of a bedroom with a double bed, a prison courtyard outside the window.

Controversy and Conjugal Visits

Conjugal visits were first allowed as incentives for the forced labor of incarcerated Black men, the practice expanding from there. Is human touch a right?

by Molly Hagan via JSTOR Daily on February 13, 2023

Abandoned and burned-out buildings in the East Village in 1986.

Edifice Complex

Restoring the term “burnout” to its roots in landlord arson puts the dispossession of poor city dwellers at its center.

by Bench Ansfield via Jewish Currents on January 3, 2023

John Von Neumann and computer charts.

The World John von Neumann Built

Game theory, computers, the atom bomb—these are just a few of things von Neumann played a role in developing, changing the 20th century for better and worse.

by David Nirenberg via The Nation on November 28, 2022

Residential Security map of central Chicago, sourced from "Mapping Inequality"

How Academia Laid the Groundwork for Redlining

The connections between private industry and government were much more fluid than was previously imagined.

by LaDale Winling, Todd Michney via Platform on November 1, 2021

Remembering Past Lessons about Structural Racism — Recentering Black Theorists of Health and Society

A look at African-American scholars' contributions to health disparity discourse.

by Jeremy A. Greene, Alexandre White, Rachel L. J. Thornton via The New England Journal Of Medicine on August 26, 2021

Photo of economist Albert Hisrchman surrounded by abstract drawings

We Don't Know, But Let's Try It

For economist Albert Hirschman, social planning meant creative experimentation rather than theoretical certainty.

by Simon Torracinta via Boston Review on June 17, 2021

Jill Lepore and the cover of her Book "If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future"

“We Don’t Want the Program”: On How Tech Can’t Fix Democracy

“Start-ups: they need philosophers, political theorists, historians, poets. Critics.”

by Jill Lepore, Danah Boyd via Public Books on November 2, 2020

Nurses in masks carry a patient on a stretcher to an ambulance.

Fight the Pandemic, Save the Economy: Lessons from the 1918 Flu

We examine the 1918 flu to understand whether social distancing has economic costs or if slowing the spread of the pandemic reduced economic severity.

by Sergio Correia, Stephan Luck, Emil Verner via Liberty Street Economics on March 27, 2020

Vietnam Draft Lotteries Were a Scientific Experiment

The Vietnam draft lotteries functioned as a randomized experiment—which has allowed social scientists to study its life-changing effects.

by Tim Johnson, Dalton Conley, Christopher T. Dawes via The Atlantic on December 2, 2019

Big Bird on the set of 'Sesame Street'

The Unmistakable Black Roots of 'Sesame Street'

Celebrating its 50th anniversary, the beloved children’s television show was shaped by the African-American communities in Harlem and beyond.

by Bryan Greene via Smithsonian on November 7, 2019

Immigrants after their arrival in Ellis Island by ship in 1902.

Not So Evident

How experts and their facts created immigration restriction.

by Katherine Benton-Cohen via Perspectives on History on March 25, 2019

A scene from Birth of a Nation.

Births of a Nation

Cedric Robinson has a great deal to teach us about Trumpism and the significance of resistance in determining the future.

by Robin D. G. Kelley via Boston Review on March 6, 2017

Wooden mannequin propped up with head hung low.

How a Scientific Consensus Collapsed

The curious case of social psychology.

by Jacob Mikanowski via The Chronicle of Higher Education on February 20, 2025

illustration of stack of books

The Rise and Fall of Liberal Historiography

How historians changed their approach, from the 1960s to the present.

by Gabriel Winant via HNN on February 11, 2025

Kamala Harris on stage at a campaign rally

The Polling Imperilment

Presidential polls are no more reliable than they were a century ago. So why do they consume our political lives?

by Rick Perlstein via The American Prospect on September 25, 2024

Photo of United States bill, saying "In God We Trust."

The Deep Religious Roots of American Economics

Any attempt to understand the complexities of American economic thought without considering the significant role of religious beliefs is incomplete.

by Benjamin M. Friedman via The MIT Press Reader on September 5, 2024

Two 1950s cars in front of a diner

You Can’t Go Home Again

Our thinking about nostalgia is badly flawed because it relies on defective assumptions about progress and time.

by Charlie Tyson via The Hedgehog Review on March 19, 2024

A man stands before four doorways with cryptic letters on them.

Sorting the Self

The self has never been more securely an object of classification than it is today.

by Christopher Yates via The Hedgehog Review on March 3, 2024

Walt Rostow testifying in the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C., February 1962.

The Real Washington Consensus

Modernization theory and the delusions of American strategy.

by Charles King via Foreign Affairs on October 24, 2023

A view of the campus of New College of Florida in Sarasota, Fla,. on Jan. 19, 2023.

The History Behind the Right's Effort to Take Over Universities

The right has had qualms about universities since the 1930s.

by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd via Made By History on October 23, 2023

Andrea Casali: The Personification of History Writing on the Back of Time, early 1760s

Ego-Histories

The more that historians make their own experiences an explicit part of their work, the harder it will become to let the sources speak clearly.

by David A. Bell via New York Review of Books on June 1, 2023

Collage of DNA sequence and scientists, reading "Your Child's IQ: What Role Does Heredity Play?"

Losing the Genetic Lottery

How did a field meant to reclaim genetics from Nazi abuses wind up a haven for race science?

by Padmini Raghunath via Distillations on April 6, 2023

"Thinking like an Economist" light blue book cover

The ‘Economic Style’ as Red Scare Legacy

The rise of the “economic style of reasoning” in the 1960s cannot be properly understood without attending to the political fallout of earlier decades.

by Landon Storrs via LPE Project on September 13, 2022

Statue of a man reading to children: the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial, Annapolis, Maryland.

Black Genealogy After Alex Haley’s Roots

"A lot has been hidden from Black Americans. And so there is always a longing to know who you are and where you come from.”

by Menika Dirkson via Black Perspectives on June 17, 2022

Woodcut illustration from 1934 economics textbook depicting people walking from tenement houses past an advertising billboard and straight to a loan office.

Bad Economics

How microeconomic reasoning took over the very institutions of American governance.

by Simon Torracinta via Boston Review on March 9, 2022

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