historiography
What does the West owe to Christianity and Islam?: Complexity historians
The monk who smuggled numerals In 976, al-Khwarizmi’s work on Hindu-Arabic numerals reached a Catalan monastery through Gerbert of Aurillac, a monk who had studied in Islamic Iberia. Gerbert became Pope Sylvester II.... What does developmental history reveal that's hard to see any other way?: Narrative historians
The book that was impossible On March 20, 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Within a year: 300,000 copies in the US, over a million in Britain, bestselling novel of the century.... What does developmental history reveal that's hard to see any other way?: Materialists
The timing In 1807, Parliament voted to abolish the British slave trade. In 1806, the British had captured the Cape Colony, securing a route to India that no longer depended on Caribbean sugar profits. The coincidence is not a coincidence.... Is 'Western civilization' a real thing or a brand?: Developmental readers
The wrong unit We have been listening to this debate for years, and the thing nobody says aloud is that "civilization" may be the wrong unit of analysis entirely. The civilizational defenders describe a tradition with identifiable internal logic.... Is 'Western civilization' a real thing or a brand?: Category critics
The relay race that wasn’t Columbia needed a reason. Twenty million dead. Veterans coming home. The faculty designed a course that explained why — a narrative from Athenian democracy through Roman law to the American republic, as if the whole thing were a relay race and the baton...