Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Through our tax and spending policies, we can expand our economy or let it wither; make society more equal, or less; expand opportunity or continue to let tens of millions of struggling families fend for themselves. There is a way to pay for the government that people want, and shape that government and the economy in ways that serve us all.
We used to think—and many of us were taught in school—that the dinosaurs went extinct many millions of years ago. But now it seems like this might not be the case.
Over his esteemed six decade career, Italian composer Ennio Morricone has scored hundreds of movies across numerous genres, most famously the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone.
This March, in honour of Women’s History Month, and in celebration of the achievements and contributions of women to the field of philosophy, the OUP philosophy team honours Philippa Foot (1920–2010) as its Philosopher of the Month. Philippa Foot is widely regarded as one of the most distinctive and influential moral philosophers of the twentieth-century.
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I’ll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
“When my mother died, the music stopped in my house,” said Isabel Heredia. Her mother wasn’t a professional singer, “but she had a fantastic voice. She sang at parties.”
Ever wonder why Lady Justice looks the way she does? She is modeled after the Roman goddess Iustitia and is an allegorical personification of the justice system. She is usually depicted with a scale in one hand, a sword in the other, and wearing a blindfold. Why? Well, she is to use the scale to weigh the evidence.
China’s launched its one child policy in 1979 as a means of reducing population growth in the world’s most populous nation. Several authors draw attention to the potential for crime and social conflict – and a 2013 study finds that crime is higher in provinces with higher ratios of men to women.
Though history favours the warriors, monarchs, and rebels, female pacifists and mediators behind the scenes were just as vital in the fight for equality.
Positive events were linked to a strong increase in life satisfaction, and negative events to a strong decrease. However, people overestimate how long the effect of an event continues. Recently married people, for example, overestimate how happy they will be in five years.
It seems that we know more about the “heart” of social work—the dedication to service—than we do about its “head”—the contributions the profession has made to other areas of research.
It turned out that the melancholy idiom send one to Coventry may not have anything to do with that town. To reinforce this unexpected conclusion, I’ll relate another story. At one time, the phrase up at Harwich existed; perhaps it is still known in the eastern counties.
Female microbiologists many not have had professor or doctor in front of their names, instead listed as laboratory assistants or technicians, but in many cases their skills were critical for numerous notable discoveries. It is worth reminding ourselves who they are and how they changed the world for good.
Bob Marley sings, “One good thing about music—when it hits you, you feel no pain.” Although this may be the case for some people and in some circumstances, we dispute this statement as a global truth.
The collapse of Arab regional order during the 2011 uprisings provided a chance to reconsider the Middle East’s famously misshapen states. Most rebels sought to control the central government, not to break away from it. Separatist, in contrast, unilaterally sought territorial autonomy or outright secession.
Since the dawn of advanced civilizations, humanity has sought to manage the flow of rivers. Protection from floods, water for drinking and irrigating crops, and extraction of resources like food and energy are among the most popular reasons for building dams.