…answers, we turned to Peter Coclanis, a professor of economic and business history at the University of North Carolina, whose research focuses on the American South in the eighteenth and…
Last week, we solicited your questions for Steven Johnson, the author of Where Do Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. Your questions were very good, as are…
…not seem like it, but we’re living in the most peaceable time in history. That’s more of a commentary on just how violent our past is, rather than the tranquility…
I came home this evening and found five magazines waiting in the mailbox: Time, BusinessWeek, The Economist, Columbia (a university alumni magazine) and Natural History (from the Museum of Natural…
How do they emerge from the Upper Cretaceous period to end up in natural-history museums and private collections? Zachary Crockett digs for answers.
…memory, or even in history. Then ask yourself to list the things for which he is directly or indirectly responsible. It’s probably not hard to come up with a long…
Hit by Covid, runaway costs, and a zillion streams of competition, serious theater is in serious trouble. A new hit play called Stereophonic — the most Tony-nominated play in history…
…do so. But the real problem went beyond economics. What enabled the robber barons to do so was their increasing political power. At a point in history when US institutions…
…influential map in history? A. I don’t think you can point to any single map and say: this is the most important map ever. But there definitely are a few…
…for a pitcher in Major League history. But the Tanaka contract is different from the top four on the list. The top four contracts went to pitchers who were already…
His research on police brutality and school incentives won him acclaim, but also enemies. He was suspended for two years by Harvard, during which time he took a hard look…
Organized labor hasn’t had this much public support in 50 years, and yet the percentage of Americans in a union is near a record low. A.F.L-C.I.O. president Liz Shuler tries…
Bapu tries to stump master clinician Dr. Gurpreet Dhaliwal with a medical mystery….
No. But now is a good time to sort out the potential from the hype. Whether you’re bullish, bearish, or just confused, we’re here to explain what the blockchain can…
What happens to your reputation when you’re no longer around to defend it?
What happens to your reputation when you’re no longer around to defend it?
One of the most storied (and valuable) sports franchises in the world had fallen far. So they decided to do a full reboot — and it worked: this week, they…
In one of the earliest Freakonomics Radio episodes (No. 39!), we asked a bunch of economists with young kids how they approached child-rearing. Now the kids are old enough to…
How a pain-in-the-neck girl from rural Virginia came to run the most powerful university in the world.
Cat Bohannon’s new book puts female anatomy at the center of human evolution. She tells Steve why it takes us so long to give birth, what breast milk is really…
Whether you’re building a business or a cathedral, execution is everything. We ask artists, scientists, and inventors how they turned ideas into reality. And we find out why it’s so…
The human foot is an evolutionary masterpiece, far more functional than we give it credit for. So why do we encase it in “a coffin” (as one foot scholar calls…
The controversial Harvard economist, recently back from a suspension, “broke a lot of glass early in my career,” he says. His research on school incentives and police brutality won him…
How a pain-in-the-neck girl from rural Virginia came to run the most powerful university in the world.
A single company, EssilorLuxottica, owns so much of the eyewear industry that it’s hard to escape their gravitational pull — or their “obscene” markups. Should regulators do something? Can Warby…
Medical tests can save lives. So how do doctors decide who gets tested, and when?…
How psychologist Dan Gilbert went from high school dropout to Harvard professor, found the secret of joy, and inspired Steve Levitt’s divorce….
The San Francisco 49ers, one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world, also used to be one of the best. But they’ve been losing lately — a lot…
In one of the earliest Freakonomics Radio episodes, we asked a bunch of economists with young kids how they approached child-rearing. Now the kids are old enough to talk —…
College, at its best, is about learning to think. Stephen Dubner chats up three of his former professors who made the magic happen.
