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Photo illustration of a button causing death courtesy of MIT Press Reader.

How Americans Got Comfortable With Killing at the Push of a Button

For years, the idea seemed immoral and dangerous.
by Rachel Plotnick via Slate on June 20, 2022
Smiley face with game pieces as facial features against a blue background

What the History of AI Tells Us About its Future

IBM’s chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue was eclipsed by the neural-net revolution. Now, 25 years on, the machine may get the last laugh.
by Clive Thompson via MIT Technology Review on February 18, 2022
Two men holding picture of alien toward camera

Making Sense of Heaven’s Gate

An excerpt from the new anthology, “American Cult.”
by Robyn Chapman via The Nib on August 2, 2021
Manhattan women's health rally
partner

Newsletters May Threaten the Mainstream Media, But They Also Build Communities

The platforms are new, but the form has been around for most of a century.
by Sarah M. Ovink via Made By History on July 8, 2021
Thomas Edison exhibiting the phonograph to visitors at his laboratory

Bottled Authors

The predigital dream of the audiobook.
by Matthew Rubery via Cabinet on March 16, 2021
Headshot of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Trouble with Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman authored the beloved short story "The Yellow Wallpaper," but also supported eugenics and nativism.
by Halle Butler via The Paris Review on March 11, 2021

The Library of Possible Futures

Since the release of "Future Shock" 50 years ago, the allure of speculative nonfiction has remained the same: We all want to know what’s coming next.
by Samantha Culp via The Atlantic on February 1, 2021
19th century illustration of an airship

The Great White Reunion: On Duncan Bell’s “Dreamworlds of Race”

Could the separation of the Revolutionary War have been patched in the late 19th century? Some powerful men tried...
by Bassam Sidiki via Los Angeles Review of Books on January 26, 2021

Signs and Wonders

Reading the literature of past plagues and suddenly seeing our present reflected in a mirror.
by Francine Prose via Lapham’s Quarterly on September 14, 2020

How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future

When J.F.K. ran for President, a team of data scientists with powerful computers set out to model and manipulate American voters. Sound familiar?
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on July 27, 2020
Galaxy in space.

Sanctuary or Battlefield?

Fighting for the soul of American space policy.
by Stephen Buono via Perspectives on History on July 15, 2020

Panel Mania

An excerpt from a new graphic biography of Jack Kirby, the "King of Comics."
by Tom Scioli, Calvin Reid via The Millions on June 26, 2020

What Our Contagion Fables Are Really About

In the literature of pestilence, the greatest threat isn’t the loss of human life but the loss of what makes us human.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on March 23, 2020

Story-Shaped Things

Historians tell stories about the past. A new book argues that those stories are often dangerously wrong.
by Jonathan W. Wilson via Contingent on October 16, 2019
Neil Armstrong and the American flag on the moon.

Apollo 11 Capsule Foil and Memories of Plucking NASA’s Moonmen From the Sea

A recollection of a NASA employee's experiences with Apollo 11 and 12.
by David Porter II, Lisa Hix via Collectors Weekly on July 12, 2019

Hollow Words

Exploring John Cleves Symmes Jr.’s obsession with a hollow Earth.
by Laura Leavitt via The Smart Set on January 7, 2019

Time-Bombing the Future

Synthetics created in the 20th century have become an evolutionary force, altering human biology and the web of life.
by Rebecca Altman via Aeon on January 2, 2019
Sign showing a hand pushing a button.

Cute as a Button? Think Twice

A new book examines the first generation of button-pushing Americans at the turn of the 20th century.
by Anna Feuer via Los Angeles Review of Books on November 30, 2018
The book "The Handmaid's Tale"

Margaret Atwood on How She Came to Write The Handmaid’s Tale

The origin story of an iconic novel.
by Margaret Atwood via Literary Hub on April 25, 2018

The 100 Pages That Shaped Comics

From Mickey to Maus, tracing the evolution of the pictures, panels, and text that brought comic books to life.
by Jeet Heer, Abraham Josephine Riesman, Sarah Boxer, Heidi MacDonald, Fred Van Lente, Brian Cronin, Charles Hatfield, Christopher Spaide, Joshua Rivera, Klaus Janson, Mark Morales, Richard Starkings via Vulture on April 16, 2018

Is It Time for a 21st-Century Version of ‘The Day After’?

It’s beginning to feel like the 1980s all over again.
by Marsha Gordon via The Conversation on January 25, 2018

The 1968 Book That Tried to Predict the World of 2018

For every amusingly wrong prediction in “Toward the Year 2018,” there’s one unnervingly close to the mark.
by Paul Collins via The New Yorker on January 1, 2018
A house with Christmas lights, and wildfires advancing towards it.

Southern California’s Uncanny, Inevitable Yuletide Fires

The current level of fire danger is so high that the U.S. Forest Service has described them using the color purple, to signify “extreme.”
by Mike Davis via The New Yorker on December 11, 2017
Detail from the Russian poster for the 1957 Polish film Kanal, directed by Andrzej Wajda and set during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Photo by Getty

The Strange Political History of The ‘Underground’

Subterranean metaphors have been a powerful tool of political resistance. Today, is there anywhere left to hide?
by Terence Renaud via Aeon on December 14, 2016
The media fueled fears of a parrot-fever pandemic; then the story went into reverse. Illustration by Laurent Cilluffo.

The Spread

Jill Lepore on disease outbreaks of pandemic proportions, media scares, and the parrot-fever panic of 1930.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on May 25, 2009

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