Postwar America’s aerospace industry combined captured German personnel with manufacturing excellence to accomplish the most incredible engineering feats in history. But process knowledge can be easily lost.

Nineteenth-century Americans stunned outsiders with their capacity for self-organizing. By cultivating the virtues of public usefulness, procedural formality, and agentic hierarchy, they created a powerful set of norms for building institutions.

The decline of American community life did not begin with the internet. Over the course of the mid-twentieth century, the country’s urban centers were bulldozed through to make room for freeways.

As Mao Zedong’s wife, Jiang Qing helped lead China’s Cultural Revolution with a Nietzschean philosophy of art. Through revolutionary operas and ballets, she sought a heroic consciousness that could transform society.

Despite modern approaches to archaeology and preservation, as history moves forward we will only lose knowledge of the past.

Bill Gates has used his foundation to win prestige and secure the goals of the elite consensus. But without strategic independence, he cannot act against its worst ideas.

James Glimm may have just solved one of the most complex problems in mathematics—but his life’s work might be able to teach us the secret of living well.

The Taliban has succeeded in reconquering Afghanistan. But while the U.S. may be gone, the new regime faces increasing Westernization among its subjects—and its own fighters.

Germany is renowned for its automotive engineering. But its historic car industry is getting left behind in the electric vehicle transition, calling the country’s entire economic model into question.

In 2022, Yamagami Tetsuya assassinated Japan’s former leader in revenge for his ties to the Unification Church. But Japan’s cults look to become more powerful as its social order decays.

After learning the truth about Stalin in 1956, Soviet propagandist Alexander Yakovlev became disillusioned with the communist project. Decades later, he helped end it.

Seventy years ago, nuclear power was poised to launch us into an energy-rich future. Why didn’t that happen?

The early years of Vietnam’s legendary general Võ Nguyên Giáp show the power of a competent lieutenant working in close trust with a sovereign leader.

Simon Mann discusses his experiences as a mercenary intervening in the Angolan civil war, getting involved in a failed coup in Equatorial Guinea, and his time in some of Africa’s worst prisons.

Ilham Aliyev turned Azerbaijan from a Russian vassal into a pro-Western petrostate. Now, a new Turkish alliance and military victories against Armenia are revealing his ambitions for regional power.

Lord Martin Rees is an astrophysicist and the current Astronomer Royal. He reflects on how science can serve society and the obstacles for those who want to follow in his footsteps.