Civilization Archives

Civilization

Flesh and Blood

by David Graeber, David Wengrow,

From The Dawn of Everything, which will be published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. In the mid-twentieth century, a British anthropologist named A. M. Hocart proposed that monarchs…

History As End

by Matthew Karp,

1619, 1776, and the politics of the past

Becoming Human

by Roberto Calasso,Translated by Richard Dixon,

From The Celestial Hunter, which will be published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Translated from the Italian. In the time of the Great Raven even the invisible was…

What China Threat?

by Kishore Mahbubani,

How the United States and China can avoid war

The Uncertainty Principle

by Walter Kirn,

The first year of the Trump presidency is behind us. The unimaginable has become the historical. But time, the reputed healer of all wounds, has somehow only aggravated this one.…

Apocalypse Always

by Walter Kirn,

As a teenager in the Mormon Church, I was led to believe I might live to see the world end — the fallen world of sin and imperfection, that is, which…

Political Calculus

by Lyubov Ulyakhina,Translated by Alan Yuhas,

From an interview with Lyubov Ulyakhina, an expert hired by the Russian Academy of Education, published in April on the Russian news site Znak.com. In March, Russia’s Ministry of Education…

Ad Absurdum

by Thomas Frank,

Suppose we decide to take a look at the Sixties from a fresh perspective. Suppose we start not with politicians, or soldiers in Vietnam, or civil rights protesters, or Woodstock…

Heirs Apparent

by Daniel Brook,

From A History of Future Cities, by Daniel Brook, to be published next month by W. W. Norton. Brook’s article “New Hampshire Goddam” appeared in the November 2012 issue of…

American Vespers

by Earl Shorris,

The ebbing of the body politic

History deletes itself

by Hans-Ulrich Obrist,