Thirty letters in my name

I finished Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan a month ago, and still can't (and do not want to) shake off its influence on my t...

1. Our relationship to the natural world is ambiguous. On the one hand, we are drawn to landscapes. We love to visit national parks; we like...

1. My friends know well that I do not drink much. In fact, I know nothing of the nuances: which glass suits which wine, the subtle differenc...

To the uninitiated reader, my travels can seem a little puzzling. Why Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia? A friend recently said I was traveling to ...

History is totally unpredictable. If you ask me how the world will be in ten years I really have no idea. One assumes it will not change muc...

Contrasts in the historical trajectories of different regions can provide fresh perspectives. That is why my favorite books are those that s...

This blog turns five today. I've enjoyed writing here immensely. Consider this an open thread; do post what you feel about this blog, wh...

I've been terrible about posting lately, and for that, my apologies. Last year, I was consistent with eight posts a month, but that kin...

Edward Wilson , yet again with a startling insight, in the 25th anniversary foreword to Sociobiology: The New Synthesis : Human nature – the...

El Alto is a Aymara city perched at the rim of the canyon in which the world's highest capital, La Paz , is nestled. So El Alto, at ...

Most of us have heard of the Incas , but they were only the last of a line of empires that rose in western South America. Before them, in th...

In the marvelous introduction to his book, Genghis khan And The Making Of The Modern World , Jack Weatherford writes, The Mongols made no te...

In the early 2000s, I wanted to write a short story set in the south Indian city of Mysore . I had been inspired by my travels to the city. ...

Edward Wilson writes in Sociobiology: The New Synthesis : Artistic impulses are by no means limited to man. In 1962, when Desmond Morris re...

Elizabeth Adamitiz is seventy four. She lives alone two houses down from me, at the end of Summer Street in Amherst, Massachusetts. Late in ...

During my travels in Peru, I found nothing more striking or elegant than Inca walls. Above you’ll find two examples. The first is in a stree...

Occupied with grading and other end of semester tasks -- typically a deluge -- but will be back in a week or so. There still much to write a...

The [ballooning] method is widespread and ancient among spiders. When an immature spider possessing this ability wishes to travel a long dis...

My last class this semester will be on Monday. Whether you are a student or professor, the end of the semester is always something to look f...