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Henry David Thoreau stay woke philosophy history and literature civil disobedience culture and society politics justice thought and opinion

Thoreau, born 199 years ago today, on how to use civil disobedience to advance justice — so immensely timely today.

maps politics caricature humor art and design Victorian art culture and society

Clever cartographic caricatures of European nations, drawn by a Victorian teenage girl.

E.B. White gun control lit history and literature culture and society thought and opinion peace politics

E.B. White, writing half a century ago, on weapons, justice, and what it really takes to live in a peaceful world – beautiful read, strikingly pertinent to our predicament of gun control.

LGBT Pride Month Pride Parade Gay Pride LGBT history and literature history culture and society politics activism

Celebrate Pride weekend with these marvelous vintage photos of the first-ever Pride parades

Jean Paul Sartre politics culture and society history and literature philosophy Nobel Prize history

A writer who adopts political, social, or literary positions must act only with the means that are his own — that is, the written word.

Jean Paul Sartre, born 111 years ago today, on why he became the first person to decline the Nobel Prize.

Hannah Arendt politics psychology philosophy culture and society history and literature thought and opinion

Hannah Arendt on the psychology of lying politics – penned in 1971, timelier than ever.

Barack Obama memoir love politics culture and society thought and opinion

Young Barack Obama on what his mother taught him about love

politics science and technology science illustration vintage children's books

How Our Government Helps Us – a delightful 1969 illustrated primer, reminding us of the urgency of choosing worthy leaders.

Madeleine Albright commencement commencement address thought and opinion culture and society education politics media and communication

It’s hard to articulate how tremendously surprised and moved I was by this commencement address by Madeleine Albright (a person with whom I disagree politically on many counts) and how important it is both in its substance and in the context in which it was delivered. Find both the speech and the story of its context here.

James Baldwin election politics culture and society thought and opinion history and literature lit

James Baldwin on freedom and how we imprison ourselves – spectacular, immensely timely read. (He could’ve been talking about this election.)

Seymour Chwast Donald Trump art and design graphic design politics

Seymour Chwast is a genius.

Eleanor Roosevelt politics culture and society thought and opinion

Eleanor Roosevelt on the power of personal conviction and our individual responsibility in social change – spectacular read from half a century ago, even timelier today, amid a particularly strange election year.

Martin Luther King Jr. MLK civil rights culture and society politics love history and literature history

Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can only be done by projecting the ethic of love to the center of our lives.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered on this day in 1968. We need to carry out and carry on his “experiment in love” more than ever.

JFK Robert Frost politics poetry art and design speeches culture and society history and literature lit art John F. Kennedy

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.

JFK on poetry, politics, and the artist’s role in society – his sublime tribute to Robert Frost, born on this day in 1874.

Adrienne Rich thought and opinion poetry science culture and society politics science and technology

We might hope to find the three activities — poetry, science, politics — triangulated, with extraordinary electrical exchanges moving from each to each and through our lives. Instead, over centuries, they have become separated — poetry from politics, poetic naming from scientific naming, an ostensibly “neutral” science from political questions, “rational” science from lyrical poetry…

The brilliant Adrienne Rich on what a rare blue bird taught her about the confluence of art, science, and politics in human life.