When the historian Alexis de Tocqueville visited the young United States in the 1830s, one of the facets of American life that left the deepest impression on him was the variety and intensity of opinions held by citizens from every walk of life, expressed both in...
In many ways the progress of female emancipation can be credited to the efforts of exceptional women in broadening the definition of “women’s work” over the past several centuries. At the time of the Renaissance in Europe, a typical upper-class woman was not expected...
Many people can remember a time in their careers when everything seemed to be conspiring against their success, from the tools in their hands to the supervisors watching over their shoulders. We generally tend to get over this feeling after a little while, recognizing...
Work-life conflict can be considered a basic fact of life. Anyone who works for a living faces a constant pull between the demands of a career and the obligations of family and friends. Those who can and choose to devote themselves to one or the other exclusively can...
Every university is like a microcosm of the society that surrounds it. In academia we find personal and professional relationships intertwined, periods of effective cooperation alternating with bitter controversy, and the same intense emotions and aspirations that are...
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries is the story of a nation seeking respect from the rest of the world. To the Japanese, their ability to emulate the best qualities of the West while preserving their own traditional values was a source of great pride,...
In November of 1936, the renowned magazine publisher Henry Luce launched a new periodical intended to transform his medium, one with a plain but evocative name for which he had purchased the rights from the publishers of an earlier and ultimately unsuccessful...
One privilege that many of us have, whether we know it or not, is the presence of other people like us who can give us support when we need it. This feeling of community can be a great source of strength; in fact, for those who have encountered constant discrimination...
One of the most striking ways in which past eras have differed from our own is the average person’s experience of childhood. Today in the United States most of us consider it a basic entitlement for a child to have continuous schooling for twelve years, while a...
Sometimes our mistakes can be more valuable to us than our successes. They can make us more aware of the intricacies of day-to-day problems and lead us to innovative new solutions. But this can only happen if we acknowledge our mistakes, rather than covering them up...
The 1950s was a decade marked not only by phenomenal advances in science, but by an enormous amount of public interest in scientific and technological progress. This was the Space Age, when writers of science fiction looked forward to a boundless future in which human...
Designers of private homes have often been given short shrift by the historians of architecture, who tend to focus on grander and more impressive structures: skyscrapers, monuments, museums and the like. In some sense this would appear perfectly appropriate; public...