On ‘work ethic’

By Peter Womack
The expression is somehow on everybody’s lips. Its incidence in the media has risen steadily over the last decade or so, and now an attentive reader of the broadsheets is likely to encounter it every day. It’s most often found on the sports pages: one recent forty-eight-hour period registered online praise for the respective work ethics of the footballer Nicolas Anelka, the cricketer Peter Siddle, the tennis player Marion Bartoli, and the British Lions rugby team.

Summers with George Balanchine

By Elizabeth Kendall

By Elizabeth Kendall
A hundred years ago in the summer of 1913, nine-year-old George Balanchine, then Georgi Balanchivadze, spent the last moments of normal childhood — in the country, in the forest by a lake — before he was abruptly brought back to St. Petersburg.

Understanding history through biography

At the April 2013 Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Susan Ware, General Editor of the American National Biography, discussed her first year in charge of the site and her vision for its future. Ware argues that one of the best ways to understand history is through the lives of history’s major and minor players.

No love for the viola?

By Katherine Stopa

To be frank, there has never been much love for the viola (or violists). As an erstwhile violist I would get two types of reactions about my instrument of choice: from non-musicians, “what’s a viola?” and from musicians… well just Google “viola jokes” and it will return some real doozies.

Why should we care about the Septuagint?

Even though the Bible is one of the most widely read books in history, most readers of religious literature have no knowledge of the Septuagint—the Bible that was used almost universally by early Christians—or of how it differs from the Bible used as the basis for most modern translations.

Myths about rape myths

By Helen Reece
In recent decades, England and Wales have experienced extensive rape law reform and a substantial rise in rape reporting, but the number of rape convictions has not kept pace, leading to a galloping attrition rate: the current proportion of recorded rapes that result in a rape conviction is about 7%.

Europe’s 1968: voices of revolt

By Robert Gildea
May ‘68 is often used as a shorthand for the protests and revolts that took place in that year, conjuring up images of barricades and Molotov cocktails in the Latin Quarter of Paris. But 1968 did not take place only in one year

It’s only a virus

By Dorothy H. Crawford
“It’s only a virus.” How often do GPs utter those words over the course of a working day? They mean, of course, that your symptoms are mild, non-specific and don’t warrant any treatment. If you just go home and rest you’ll recover in a few days.

Armchair travels

By Julie Kalman
This is a piece about subjectivity. And while we’re on the topic, let’s just stop for a moment to talk about me. When the weekend paper delivers its fullness at the breakfast table, I don’t stop to read the travel section.

‘Wild-haired and witch-like’: the wisewoman in industrial society

By Francesca Moore
Many of us rely on herbal remedies to maintain our health, from peppermint tea to soothe our stomachs to arnica cream for alleviating bruising. Such is the faith in these remedies that Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) has funded alternative medical treatments and specialist homeopathic hospitals.

Why do women struggle to achieve work-life balance?

By Heidi Moawad
Is work-life balance consistent with professional ambition? A recent study concludes that young women are now proclaiming that they don’t want to be leaders. Does this data suggest that young women who do want to be leaders should not bother to ‘lean in’ by acquiring expert level knowledge, attaining specialized skills and pursuing experience-building work projects when they have the opportunity?

The superpower I want most

Back in June, we asked you to tell us your favorite superpower. After reviewing several entries, our expert panel of judges has selected Gary Zenker’s piece on “The super power I want most.

Vaccination: what are the risks?

By Peter C. Doherty
All prediction is probabilistic. Maybe that statement is unfamiliar. It’s central to the thinking of every scientist, though this is not to the way media commentators like Jenny McCarthy approach the world. Scientists make certain predictions, or recommend courses of action on the basis of the best available evidence, but we realize that there is always an element of risk.

The Poetic Edda and Wagner’s Ring Cycle

By Carolyne Larrington
In his masterpiece, Wagner synthesised stories from across the Old Norse – Icelandic collection of poems known as the Poetic Edda. He had long been mulling over an opera based on the German epic, Das Nibelungenlied, but he realised that he needed more material and more inspiration. Wagner knew where he might find it: “I must study these Old Norse eddic poems of yours; they are far more profound than our medieval poems”, he remarked to the Danish composer Niels Gade in 1846.

What have we learned from modern wars?

Richard English
War remains arguably the greatest threat that we face as a species. It also remains an area of activity in which we still tend to get far too many things wrong. For there’s a depressing disjunction between what we very often assume, think, expect, and claim about modern war, and its actual historical reality when carefully assessed.

Glaucoma: not just a disease of adults

By Robert M. Feldman, MD
Glaucoma is a potentially blinding disease where degeneration of the optic nerve leads to progressive vision loss. In the United States, it is estimated that 2.2 million suffer from glaucoma.