Category Archives: Author Essays
Teaching the Cold War to a Generation Born After
by Stephen Kotkin, author of Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment (Modern Library, 2010) I started teaching at Princeton University in September 1989—and two months into my first course the Berlin Wall fell. The ink on my … Continue reading
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The Enough Moment
by John Prendergast, co-author of The Enough Moment: Fighting to End Africa’s Worst Human Rights Crimes (Three Rivers Press, 2010) Three of the most horrible scourges facing humanity are genocide (the destruction of people based on their identity), rape as a war … Continue reading
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Third World America
by Arianna Huffington, author of Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream (Broadway, 2011) As a young girl growing up in Greece, I remember walking to school in the city of … Continue reading
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Why God Did Not Create the Universe
by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, authors of The Grand Design (Bantam, 2010) According to Viking mythology, eclipses occur when two wolves, Skoll and Hati, catch the sun or moon. At the onset of an eclipse people would make lots of … Continue reading
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The Invisible Gorilla
by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, authors of The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us (Crown Archetype, 2010) More than a decade ago, when we did the experiment that inspired the name of our book, we had no … Continue reading
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The Myth of the Mid-Life Crisis, and the Real Search for Fulfillment
by Susan Krauss Whitbourne, author of The Search for Fulfillment: Revolutionary New Research That Reveals the Secret to Long-term Happiness (Ballantine, 2010) Read Whitbourne’s recent post, “Why We Love Betty White”, on Psychology Today. It gives me great pleasure to tell … Continue reading
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The Occult and the Making of American Religion
by Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult America: White House Seances, Ouija Circles, Masons, and the Secret Mystic History of Our Nation (Bantam hardcover 2009, Bantam trade paperback October 2010). In 1970, philosopher Jacob Needleman opened a new discussion about religion … Continue reading
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Ecoliteracy 2.0
by Daniel Goleman, author of Ecological Intelligence: The Hidden Impacts of What We Buy (Broadway Business, 2010), a book selected by Virginia Tech for its 2009 and 2010 Common Book Project. Near the start of the 20th century William James wrote … Continue reading
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The Right Answer, And Other Nonexistent Things
by Thomas Mullen, author of Last Town on Earth (Random House, 2007). When reading works of fiction, students often think that there’s a right answer for how they’re supposed to respond to the book. Surely (as they’re sometimes taught in … Continue reading
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