Perhaps by domesticating the zombie, the creators of The Walking Dead have inadvertently stumbled upon the new cutting edge of horror. It's no longer a supernatural or extra-terrestrial invasion or any sort of "evil other."
Religion has become improverished and identified with an irrational belief in far-fetched stories -- if taken as literal fact -- which were intended as parables symbolic of larger truths in human life.
Jared Diamond has sounded a clarion call in his most recent and interestingly provocative book, The World Until Yesterday.
Jared Diamond has a new book out, The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn From Traditional Societies, and academic anthropologists are again up in arms.
In his review of Jared Diamond's new book, David Brooks is appropriately horrified by the stories of tribal women who were left to die rather than be cared for by their communities. He's so horrified that he seems to reject Diamond's core thesis that these tribespeople have something to teach us about ourselves.
Why Nations Fail is grand history in the style of Jared Diamond. Provocative and fun, the theme is that the reason nations fail or succeed is not economic policies, geography, culture, or value systems -- but rather political institutions.
Scientist and author Jared Diamond said that Mitt Romney mischaracterized his book, "Guns, Germs and Steel," to theorize why Israelis and Palestinians...
Dr. Ferguson's theme isn't new. Root causes of the rise and fall of western civilizations were earlier explored by UCLA Professor Jared Diamond in his books Guns, Germs, and Steel, and Collapse in far more convincing fashion.
We may be incredibly pessimistic about the direction our country is headed at the moment, but so were many residents back in the last days of Manifest...
Jared Diamond is the prophet of sinking societies. His acclaimed book, "Collapse," chronicled the demise of simple and advanced civilizations alike ...
Since the last Ice Age, our climate has not changed enough to threaten the viability of the species. So we make the error of confirmation and assume that it won't change much going forward.
It is really pretty remarkable to ponder how far the modern Republican Party has strayed from the vision of Lincoln, the Great Emancipator -- and Teddy Roosevelt, the Conservationist and Trust Buster.
In his endearingly titled blog, "Michael, we hardly knew ye," the venerable evolutionary biologist and slayer of creationist dragons Jerry Coyne (auth...
This isn't a stark contrast of good versus evil or us versus them. The traits we hate in corporate behavior belong to society as a whole.
Accelerating change is the central fact of the modern world. If America is to succeed and survive it must have a government that can make timely decisions, look at the long haul, and act in the public interest.
Not a day goes by when I don't eat cooked food or animal products. And not a day goes by when I don't practice yoga. Both feel better with company.
Popular nonfiction is a tricky beast. It's one thing for someone to write a memoir, or a long-form investigation that the journalist-author has perso...
The CEO of the average company in the S&P Index makes $10.5 million. That means that on the first workday of the year, he (sometimes she) has made more than the minimum wage workers in his company will make all year.
The Maya in the 8th century had little ability to understand the climate change that was happening to them. Our civilization knows what is happening and even has the ability to prevent catastrophe.
Since President Obama signed the stimulus package into law 100 days ago, the U.S. economy certainly seems to have stabilized. Then again...
In an April 21, 2008, New Yorker story, "Vengeance Is Ours," Pulitzer Prize-winning geology scholar Jared Diamond describes blood feuds that rage for ...
Christmas celebrates the central premise of the progressive ethical system, "love they neighbor as thyself," and rejects the tribalism and radical individualism that lie at the heart of right wing ideology.
Young Iranians in Diaspora have in fact come up with a slogan that rhymes with Obama -- "Ou ba mast" -- which means "he's with us!"
Why do we live in a society that, having ruined its natural environment, is now about to knowingly ruin its social environment and the lives of an entire generation?
