Sublime

Joseph Henrich uses leading-edge research in anthropology, psychology, economics and evolutionary biology to explore how changing family structures, marriage practices and religious beliefs in the Middle Ages shaped the Western mind, laying the foundations for the world we know today.

His ability to maintain his opinions against all assaults won his pupils' unswerving allegiance and their frustrations, at the same time. He demonstrated his building and design ability every day as the work proceeded, irrespective of the observers' personal opinion of it. It could not be denied. He encouraged the rich to become patrons of his grea... See more

Some of the deepest foundations of modern society started because families weren’t allowed to marry first cousins anymore.

At last count, there were 507 inhabitants of Eugénie les Bains, and I suspect that a high proportion of them work in one way or another to attend to the well-being of visitors in search of internal improvement. This has officially been a healthy spot since 1843, when a license was granted to exploit the waters. And there the village might have rema

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The following was the result: one of the customers of the Glogowski company was a banker by the name of Gustav Perger and he often visited the company. He became familiar with my father, of whom he had a very good opinion, and he suggested that they set up a factory for the production of calculating machines together. In fact he had an ulterior mot... See more

Pierre Laroque, l’architecte de la Sécurité sociale française après la Libération, n’a pas, quant à lui, légué son nom à une troisième catégorie. Mais ce haut fonctionnaire qui, ayant rejoint la Résistance à Londres, connaissait bien le plan Beveridge, n’en a pas moins profondément marqué le système français. On a ainsi pu affirmer que le système f

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Throughout most of human history, people grew up enmeshed in dense family networks that knitted together distant cousins and in-laws. In these regulated-relational worlds, people’s survival, identity, security, marriages, and success depended on the health and prosperity of kin-based networks, which often formed discrete institutions known as clans

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As they walked, Sophie passed on what little she knew about Le Panier. The oldest part of Marseille, once the home of fishermen, Corsicans, and Italians, it became a hiding place during the war for Jewish refugees and others trying to escape from the Nazis. In a particularly thorough act of retribution, the Nazis ordered the area to be evacuated in

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