How has America slid into its current age of discord? Why has our trust in institutions collapsed, and why have our democratic norms unraveled? All human societies experience recurrent waves of political crisis, such as the one we face today. My research team built a database of hundreds of societies across 10,000 years to try to find out what causes them. We examined dozens of variables, includin

When yellow fever swept through 19th-century New Orleans, immunity became so valuable, people were willing to go to extreme lengths for protection. When a young man named Isaac H. Charles arrived in yellow-fever-ravaged New Orleans in 1847, he did not, as one might expect, try to avoid the deadly disease, which killed as many as half of its victims at the time. He welcomed yellow fever—and, more i

Before tales about Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, people wrote bawdy or gross stories about Gulliver’s Travels. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels in 1726 marked the beginning of the modern fan-fiction movement. (Culture Club / Getty) Once upon a time, writing and sharing fan fiction on the internet carried a distinct stigma. Extending other people’s universes or characters was widely seen as an

Scenes From the Aftermath of Typhoon Hagibis in Japan Alan Taylor October 15, 2019 28 Photos In Focus More than 100,000 rescue workers are still combing through flooded and damaged areas of central Japan after it was struck by Typhoon Hagibis, the most powerful storm to hit the area in more than 60 years. Local authorities are blaming this weekend’s typhoon for more than 70 deaths so far, with a d

A worker removes the 19th-century statue of J. Marion Sims from New York's Central Park. (Mark Lennihan / AP) Their names—at least the ones we know—were Lucy, Anarcha, and Betsey. There were other women, but their identities have been forgotten. The man whose name appears in medical textbooks, whose likeness is memorialized in statues, is J. Marion Sims. Celebrated as the “father of modern gynecol

5 Years Since the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake Alan Taylor March 10, 2016 48 Photos In Focus Five years ago a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off Japan’s northeastern shore—the most powerful earthquake ever recorded to have hit Japan—generating enormous tsunami waves that spread across miles of shoreline, climbing as high as 130 feet (40 meters). The powerful inundation of seawater tore apart

Inspired by pop stars and encouraged by culture that equates success with physical beauty, the "self-racism subtext" of buying an ideal Korean face When 17-year-old Hailey Kim looks in the mirror, she doesn't see a pretty person. Her face is too round, she thinks; her lips too thin, her nose not quite right. Her reflection fuels a cosmetic surgery wish list -- bigger lips, higher cheeks, and a mor

Manhunt Underway, Boston Under Lockdown Alan Taylor April 19, 2013 48 Photos In Focus Hours after the FBI released images of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, a response to a robbery in nearby Cambridge led to the fatal shooting of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer. The shooting became a carjacking, then later a dangerous chase reportedly involving dozens of gunshots and e