Great Books: Melissa Schwartzberg on Rousseau...

A powerful blend of deeply human stories and rigorous research, The Collective Cure: Upstream Solutions for Better Public Health (Beacon Press, 2026) reveals how social and structural factors like income, occupation, race and ethnicity, neighborhood conditions, and social conn ...  Show more

In this timely and bold book, Against Innocence: Undoing and Remaking the World (U Chicago Press, 2025), Miriam Ticktin explores how a concept that consistently appears as a moral good actually ends up creating harm for so many. Claims to innocence protect migrant children, but o ...  Show more

<h4>The Social Contract</h4>

The state of nature is a human condition that exists in any space that lacks a civil authority. With the social contract, we're prepared to make a deal with each other in order to live together as best we can and exit the state of nature. Philosoph ...

Yascha Mounk and Timur Kuran discuss the perceived social and political pressures that lead individuals to conceal their true beliefs—and what that means for our politics. Timur Kuran is Professor of Economics and Political Science and the Gorter Family Professor of Islamic Stud ...  Show more

Brian and Prof. Wolff continue a series of discussions about the basics of Marxism — a method for understanding and changing  the world used by many of the great revolutionaries of modern history. Today, they discuss Karl Marx's theory of classes. Politicians of all strip ...

We live under an invisible ideology. It tells us that we are not citizens but consumers. That intervening in the free market compromises our freedom. That we are all millionaires-in-waiting - and if we are struggling to make ends meet, then we only have ourselves to blame. This i ...  Show more