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Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Philip Jenkins, whose latest book The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South will be out in , has an article on the rapidly changing global face of Christianity in the most recent issue of The Christian Century. Here are some of the highlights: Fifty years ago, Americans might have dismissed […]
By Anatoly Liberman In June and July there were several queries about word origins and a general question about the availability of linguistic information, which shows that no heat wave can dry up people’s interest in etymology. Wayzgoose. This word appeared late and is odd because it denotes an entertainment given specifically to printers at […]
By Brian Fagan When I sat down to compile my latest book From Stonehenge to Samarkand, I found my greatest inspiration in the writings of a virtually forgotten English writer, Rose Macaulay. Her classic book, Pleasure of Ruins, first appeared in the 1950s and was reprinted with evocative photographs by Reny Beloff a decade later. […]
Tallinn Coordinates: 59° 22′ N | 24° 48′ E Population: 401,502 (2005 est.) Novel as it may seem, some places in the world are actually attempting to make their governments more efficient, and their societies more open. Across the Gulf of Finland, not quite fifty miles from Helsinki, the Estonian cabinet conducts its paperless meetings […]
By Charlayne Hunter-Gault I’m a journalist, not a poll-taker, however, over the past month, while touring the country to talk about my book New News Out of Africa, I’ve been conducting an informal, highly un-scientific survey about how much Americans know about Africa. I know that the majority of the people I talk to are […]
By Anatoly Liberman There were days when anybody could write a letter to Notes and Queries, a biweekly magazine published in London, and see it in print a few days later. One correspondent, whose playful but sterile imagination suggested to him the pseudonym BUSHEY HEATH, wrote the following in Volume 12 of the Third Series, […]
Coordinates: 44° 33′ N | 4° 45′ E Distance from Beziers: 143 miles (230 km) Geographic Theme: Movement Yellow jerseys and stuffed lions are fine prizes, sure, but after completing the longest leg of the Tour de France, wouldn’t a tired cyclist rather cross the finish line for the promise of something sweeter, say a […]
Lawrence E. Harrison directed the USAID missions in the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Haiti and Nicaragua between 1961 and 1985. He also co-edited, with Samuel Huntington, Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress. In this podcast, Harrison discusses his latest book The Central Liberal Truth. Click here to listen to the podcast (Lawrence_Harrison_podcast_MD1.mp3)
By Anatoly Liberman Unpronounceable and unprintable English words no longer exist, and only the spellchecker turns red when smut defiles our screens for academic purposes (dictionary makers and etymologists treat all words with equanimity and, if needed, include and discuss them). Now that everything is discourse, taboo has been abolished. Strangely, the more sensitive people […]
Mark Tushnet: In reading over your responses, Saul, I was struck by the proposition that the Second Amendment, properly interpreted, would encompass only long guns – the equivalent of muskets – but not handguns. I think this is a non-starter. I begin with the question, “Why long guns – a general category – rather than […]
Mark Tushnet: A couple of things occurred to me. The less important question is this: You say that the citizen-rights view you offer “would certainly mean much more rigorous gun regulation.” Do you think that, on the view you find in the founding era, such rigorous gun regulation was thought to be required, or simply […]
Mark Tushnet: Hi Saul – First, let me say that I look forward to debating the arguments in your new book on the Second Amendment, A Well-Regulated Militia. As I read it, you make two “large” arguments, backed up of course with a lot of detail and qualifications. I’m going to sketch those arguments here, […]
By Glenn LaFantasie Authors prepare themselves for negative reviews of their books, but when critics have bad things to say about one’s writing there is no girding of the loins that really seems to work. An unfavorable review hurts, no matter what authors say to the contrary. Some writers, though, dismiss critics and criticism more […]
By Charlayne Hunter-Gault The first time I went to Ethiopia was in 1990, and I was filled with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. My excitement was sparked by the prospect of visiting one of the oldest countries in the world, and as I entered the hotel where I was to stay, I was greeted […]
For some reason, interest in the etymology of copasetic never abates. This adjective, a synonym of the equally infantile hunky-dory, is hardly ever used today unless the speaker wants to sound funny, but I cannot remember a single talk on words without someone’s asking me about its derivation and thinking that the question is of a most imaginative kind.
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