Teenagers get bored about a lot, but boredom is not a given. When it comes to engaging with difficult topics, it’s worth asking: Whose interests does boredom serve? What does it help people avoid?
We tend to assume creativity is a timeless human value. But creativity as the concept we know today emerged in the 1950s and ’60s, driven by the needs of the modern corporation.
In their book, Streets of Gold, Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan use big data to trace the stories of immigrants to the United States. Their findings are a call to revise many popular beliefs about U.S. immigration.
The question that has been strenuously debated is whether slavery, integral to commerce during colonial times, was also central to the acceleration of national economic growth during the first half of the nineteenth century.
To better understand immigration to the U.S., we need to distinguish nostalgia from reality. Our data helps us do just that.
When it comes to buying food, sight has usurped all other senses. What are the consequences of relegating smell, taste, and touch to the sidelines?