Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
By Elvin Lim
The very reason why Gingrich appeals to primary voters is the reason why he will not do well with independents voters in the fall. (And that’s an assessment coming from Anne Coulter.) Gingrich has fire, but placed alongside No Drama Obama, he’s going to look like a very unlikeable candidate. There’s hardly anyone who has worked closely with the former Speaker who has endorsed him — which tells us a lot about the guy.
by Elvin Lim
Newt Gingrich has won the biggest primary prize up for grabs so far. Romney’s win in New Hampshire has been discounted because he’s from neighboring Massachusetts, while poor Rick Santorum’s newly recently declared victory in Iowa was quickly eclipsed by the news about Rick Perry dropping put of the race, ABC’s interview with Gingrich’s ex-wife, and the scuffle over Romney’s tax returns. This is a huge victory for Gingrich because every winner in South Carolina since 1980 has gone on to win the nomination.
By Steven A. Cook
Has the Washington foreign policy establishment disavowed democracy in the Middle East? According to Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald the answer is a resounding yes.
by Michael Saler
Holmes was the first “virtual reality” character in Western literature, the model for innumerable other fictional beings and worlds that have transcended the printed page to assume an autonomous life, from The Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter.
This Day in World History
The 78-year-old man was walking to a prayer meeting with the support of two grandnieces. A man stepped out of the crowd and greeted him. The old man returned the salutation when, suddenly, the other man pulled out a pistol and shot three times. Half an hour later, Mohandas Gandhi—the leading figure of India’s independentce movement and the leading exponent of nonviolent resistance—was dead.
We all know that we eat food to keep ourselves alive. But why do we find ourselves slaves to our appetites and rumbling stomachs? What’s happening inside each of us that couldn’t happen without another slice of toast or piece of fruit, or the sneakily-consumed mid-afternoon bar of chocolate?
Nearly a year has passed since the huge crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square rallied to overthrow former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Yet, the Egyptian public remains loathe to articulate a coherent vision for Egypt, and “that is the challenge going forward,” says Steven A. Cook, CFR’s top Egypt expert.
“The text that scholars read matters everything to them because all their interpretations are based on what’s in the text. And so if the text is defective, the interpretations are going to be affected.”
By Corey Robin
Ron Paul has two problems. One is his and the larger conservative movement of which he is a part. The other is ours—by which I mean a left that is committed to both economic democracy and anti-imperialism.
On January 26, 1500, Spanish sailor Vincente Yáñez Pinzón spotted land. He named the cape the Cabo de Santa María de la Consolación. The site was near modern-day Recife, Brazil, making Pinzón the first European to explore Brazil.
By Anayo Akunne
Delirium is a common but serious condition that affects many older people admitted to hospital. It is characterised by disturbed consciousness and changes in cognitive function or perception that develop over a short period of time. This condition is sometimes called “acute confusional state”.
In the post on the C-word, I made two mistakes, for both of which I am sorry, though neither was due to chance. In Middle High German, the word klotze “vagina” existed, and I was going to write that, given such a noun, the verb klotzen “copulate” can also be reconstructed.
On January 25, 1971, General Idi Amin took advantage of the absence of President Milton Obote to stage a coup and seize power in Uganda. Amin’s turbulent rule lasted only eight years, but in that time he earned him the nickname the “Butcher of Uganda.”
In these videos, John Reader, author of Missing Links: In Search of Human Origins talks about the treasure hunt that is the search for the missing link.
In late November and early December of last year, some 195 national delegations met in Durban, South Africa, for the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP-17) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the latest in a series of international negotiations intended to address the threat of global climate change due to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHSs) in the atmosphere, largely a consequence of the worldwide combustion of fossil fuels, as well as ongoing deforestation.
There’s a new breed of dictionary, untouched by human hands. The New York Times reports that teams of programmers have developed software that automates the making of dictionaries, eliminating the need for human lexicographers, who may favor some words and neglect others.