Sean McManus
Executive Editor
Sean McManus is Program Director of the Ideas Economy Project at The Economist Group in New York where he oversees a series of offline events and edits the Ideas Economy website. Prior to that, he was executive editor of Big Think where he oversaw all editorial operations and led the production of over 400 interviews with experts and thought leaders from around the world. Earlier, Sean was an editor at 02138 magazine. His work has appeared in the New York Times, New York magazine, Worth, and Details. He is a graduate of Washington & Lee University and earned a masters degree in American History from the University of North Florida, where he was the teaching assistant for a visiting professor from South Africa named Desmond Tutu.
Is Europe Responsible for Taming the Russian Bear?
Speaking today at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Vice President Joe Biden told the world that the U.S. would no longer be a swaggering soloist throwing its muscle around […]
Can UVA Students Save the Military?
A sophomore at the University of Virginia who has fought in Iraq, as well as a few of his classmates, have designed a stronger, more comfortable body armor that they […]
Your Smartphone is Now Way Smarter Than You
A team of hyper-geniuses at MIT’s Media Lab has designed a cellphone type device that gathers data on the environment around you, searches for information using the Internet, aggregates the […]
There is a Green Comet Gunning For Planet Earth
According to NASA, there is a green comet named Lulin approaching Earth. One astronomer calls it “a green beauty that could become visible to the naked eye any day now.” […]
Nat Hentoff is Still a Fierce Libertarian
Libertarian music critic Nat Hentoff, one of the foremost authorities on the First Amendment, has joined the Cato Institute as a senior fellow. In a press release issued by the […]
Republicans Love Stimulus Too!
The chief executive of Cisco, John Chambers, has emerged as one of Silicon Valley’s few optimists, proclaiming that the U.S. economy will recover this year. Oh my! An article in […]
Change Has Come to the Dry Martini
In these economic times, it’s hard to imagine anyone who doesn’t long for a dry martini. But Jason Wilson in the Washington Post today asserts that the “post-war era dry […]
The Even Darker Side of Corporate “Survival Mode”
Duke University’s Laura Brinn cautions that all the panicking that seems to be going on inside American corporations in response to the financial crisis—”canceling investments, scaling back projects, drawing on […]
Will Obama Smash ‘Invisible’ Trade Barriers?
The Cato Institute today explores the problem of “invisible” trade barriers. “Although they are part of a large and growing segment of world trade — and a prominent feature in […]
Stephen Colbert as New York Times Columnist?
The departure last week of conservative journalist Bill Kristol from the New York Times has New York magazine asking who will be next? “It’s not that “Times readers don’t like […]
The New Latin American Paradigm
After an introduction intended to lower expectations over the progress towards sustainable governance, economic improvement and respect for human rights throughout Latin America, Stephen Haber writes in the Wall Street […]
Welcome to the New World Reality
In case you were scrambling to find a store that still had chicken wings in stock and missed the Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition, a ‘new reality’ has set in […]
Postcard From Braddock, Pennsylvania
If You’re Thinking Of Living In: Braddock, Penn. read this: It doesn’t get much worse than Braddock, Pennsylvania. Its steel industry has gone belly-up; the population has fled; and retail […]
Barack Obama Polarized Race in America
In the current issue of the Boston Review, Charles H. Stewart III and Stephen Ansolabehere, two MIT professors, argue that the election of Barack Obama was hardly evidence of a […]
Big News on Small Technology
It may be time to start rethinking the term “small business.” A recent announcement from MIT suggests that nanotechnology—in all its permutations—may be the wave of the future with regards […]
New Radio Program Explains Science!
The filter blog 3 Quarks Daily — science, design, literature, current affairs, art, and anything else we deem inherently fascinating — that seems to be especially adored by celebrity atheists, […]
Full Functionality Coming Soon
Big Think users can expect to see migration issues as well as other essential functionality issues resolved slowly over the course of the next few days, with full functionality expected […]
Note on Big Think’s Privacy Policy
Big Think takes privacy very seriously and wants to ensure that our users are protected. As we build a global forum for discussion and debate, it is vital that you–the […]
Learn to Play the Bailout Game!
If Universal’s plan to produce a Monopoly movie directed by Ridley Scott didn’t fly, the Bailout Game is the obvious answer. Blue Earth Interactive, a web design firm based in […]