Politics & Current Affairs — December 10, 2009

NYU Historian on GOP Conflicts and Prospects

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Historian Kim Phillips-Fein sat down with us to discuss the roots of the modern conservative movement in the U.S. Along with discussing its conflicted philosophical origins, she also spoke about how the conservative movement shaped the Democratic party.

Phillips-Fein also discussed how the Republican party, despite all the mistakes of the Bush years, may be in a position for a comeback.

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

A person sits on a sidewalk near an escalator entrance, next to an overturned shopping cart on a metal grate.

The Present

Can science solve the poverty problem?

An evidence-based policy movement is arming the fight with tools and programs that are more effective than ever before.

A glitch art depiction of an old sketch reminiscent of Da Vinci, featuring a bearded man in a hat with digital distortion weaving through his face.

High Culture

Ken Burns on what we get wrong about Leonardo da Vinci

Burns’ latest documentary dives into the long-romanticized life and work of the Italian polymath.

An older man with white hair and a suit receives a document from another man in a robe during an event, as several people look on in the background. In the age of viral misquotes, capturing such moments accurately becomes ever more crucial.

High Culture

Einstein didn’t say that: How viral misquotes evolve and replicate

From Einstein to Twain, Garson O’Toole investigates the truth behind your favorite — and often misattributed — quotes.

Illustration of human evolution with silhouettes of ape to human walking against an abstract background with swirling red and white patterns.

The Past

A new spin on the “Stoned Ape Hypothesis”

The controversial theory about magic mushrooms and human evolution gets a much-needed update.

A globe is encircled by golden barbed wire against a gray background, evocative of autocracy and symbolizing restriction or confinement with a sense of luxury.

The Present

Today’s dictators are united — but not by ideology

Modern autocracies operate “not like a bloc but rather like an agglomeration of companies,” says journalist and historian Anne Applebaum.

Up Next

Technology & Innovation

Media News Roundup

The Columbian Journalism Review exposes some Huffington Post trickery. Variety.com is scheduled to put its content behind a paywall. While Microsoft and Google have partnered up with Twitter and Facebook for […]