Recent Posts

How Can Poor Countries Become Rich

The answer is neither small-scale, targeted interventions nor broad generalizations about growth. Instead, we should focus on firms.

Poem: Yeh Dooriyan (These Distances)

Surendriya Rao: “I am an American poet of Indian origin. I heard ghazals sung from a young age, but never thought of them as poetry.”

A Palestinian Photographer Reflects on One Year of Life and Death in Gaza

Not all of Alghorra’s photos depict despair, plentiful as it is. In one photograph, a Palestinian teacher is seen drawing on a whiteboard in a makeshift classroom built under a tent.

How Colonial History Explains Why Strong Institutions Are Vital to a Country’s Prosperity

“The economists’ “groundbreaking research” has given us a “much deeper understanding of the root causes of why countries fail or succeed.”

‘Britain’s Cover-up of Its 1845-1850 Holocaust in Ireland’

This rhyme is thought to relate to Irish beggars who arrived in England during the British genocide which resulted in millions of deaths.

How the US Lost the Solar Power Race to China

China now produces more than 90% of the world’s photovoltaic-grade polysilicon. Back in 2010, it was a minor player.

The Last Days of Mankind

Today, each one of the assumptions that underpinned western policymaking and journalism for nearly three decades lie shattered.

Yuval Noah Harari on Why Christianity Became Popular

by Lex Fridman at YouTube: The following is a conversation with Yuval Noah Harari, a…

The Passion of the Elites

Among the topics discussed is the nature of symbolic capital; whether self interest and political idealism are necessarily contradictory…

Fats Are Actually Quite Useful

Besides storing energy as fat, lipids are best known for encircling and protecting every living cell on Earth. The molecules form an effective barrier…

Some Fun Facts About Bamboo

From the National Geographic: 1. Fast growth – Bamboo is the fastest growing plant in…

On the Myth that Arabic Translations Merely Preserved Greek Literature

What is less well-known is that the point of translating foreign works was not to preserve them but to build on them.