Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Rarely do esoteric academic debates, especially those concerning methodology, make their way into the popular press. But, for the past two years, a major controversy on the replication of psychological research has spilled into public view and shows few signs of abating. However, the debate is silent about the far more problematic conceptual crisis that challenges the core principles of scientific psychology.
People deploy the word juggernaut to describe anyone or anything that seems unstoppable, powerful, dominant. The Golden State Warriors, the recent National Basketball Association champions, are a juggernaut. National Economic Council director Gary Cohn is a “policymaking juggernaut.” Online retailer Amazon is also a juggernaut. Tennis player Roger Federer is a juggernaut at Wimbledon.
The American Revolution was at once a national, a continental, and an imperial phenomenon. It produced a new American republic, rearranged power relations and territorial claims across North America, and altered Europeans’ global empires. It inspired stirring statements about universal rights and liberties even as it exposed disturbing divisions rooted in distinctions of class, ethnicity, race, and gender.
Following a wave of Japanese attacks, the American, British, Canadian, and Dutch forces entered the Pacific War on 8 December 1941. As American forces moved across the Pacific they encountered a determined and desperate enemy and a harsh inhospitable environment. By early 1944, armed with new fast carriers, the Americans stepped up the pace of operations and launched the campaigns that would bring them to the doorstep of the Japanese homeland. But every step closer to Japan was a step farther from the United States.
Contrary to common belief, black holes don’t swallow everything that comes nearby. In fact, they expel a good part of the gas of the centre of galaxies. This happens when a wind of ionized gas is formed in the vicinity of the black hole. In the case of supermassive black holes that occur at the centre of many galaxies, they produce a wind that can interact with the galaxy itself shaping its evolution through time.
An A B C model to conceptualize anxiety responses was developed by the American psychologist Albert Ellis (1913– 2007) as a self- help and clinical tool to help people identify and understand what Ellis called “irrational” thoughts and feelings. Ellis recommended challenging and replacing negative and irrational thoughts with positive alternatives represented by Letter B in the A B C Model.
Conventional wisdom holds that many of the favorite silent movie actors who failed to survive the transition to sound films—or talkies—in the late-1920s/early-1930s were done in by voices in some way unsuited to the new medium. Talkies are thought to have ruined the career of John Gilbert, for instance, because his “squeaky” voice did not match his on-screen persona as a leading male sex symbol. Audiences reportedly laughed the first time they heard Gilbert’s voice on screen.
In this Oxford World’s Classics audio guide, listen to Robert Douglas-Fairhurst of Magdalen College, Oxford University–who edited and selected this new edition–introduce Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor.
One of the goals of our trip was to search for a butterfly called Heliconius tristero (or Heliconius timareta tristero as it is now more correctly known), which had been described in 1996 from just two specimens collected in this area. Almost anyone who has visited the jungles of tropical America is likely to be familiar with the ‘postman’ or Heliconius butterflies.
On 13 March 2017, the legal saga of the trial of Hosni Mubarak ended. The deposed autocrat, who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for his complicity in the killing of hundreds of demonstrators and embezzlement on a grander scale, was acquitted by Egypt’s Court of Cassation and freed from his detention. “The trial of the century”, as Egyptians have dubbed Mubarak’s prosecution.
In Shakespeare’s England, the term “friend” could be used to express a wide range of interpersonal relations. A friend could be anything from a neighbour, a lover, or fellow countryman, to a family member or the close personal acquaintance we understand as a “friend” today.
It is part of our everyday life that we ascribe beliefs, desires, hopes, claims, predictions and so on to other people and ourselves, and the ascription of such propositional attitudes, as they are called, generally takes a canonical form, of the sort John believes that Macron is president of France, Mary hopes that Macron is president of France, and Joe predicted that Macron would become president of France.
There is much discussion about global poverty and the billions of people living with almost nothing. Why is it that governments, development banks, think-tanks, academics, NGOs, and many others can’t just fix the problem? Why is it that seemingly obvious reforms never happen? Why are prosperity and equity so elusive?
Recent research reflects some of this range of aetiological factors that influence childhood obesity. Global perspectives from countries of study including Brazil, Australia, England, South Africa, China, and a review of the international literature cover topics frequently reported by the media, like the food environment, unhealthy food advertising policy, weight management interventions, and associations with gender and sleep.
Can grammar be glamorous? Due to its meticulous nature, the study of grammar has been saddled with an undeserved intimidating reputation. Esteemed linguist David explains how grammar is an essential tool for communication. Demystifying the rules behind the English language can allow us to communicate effectively both professionally and casually. In the following excerpt from […]
Built on the Geneva Conventions of 1949, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was founded to protect the lives and dignity of victims of armed conflict and violence and to provide them with assistance. But despite being one of the world’s most revered aid organizations, the ICRC has a complicated and unsettling history.