Well-researched stories from Public Books, The Conversation, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

How did Copenhagen become a “city of cyclists,” where a third of all journeys are by bicycle?

The criminalization of Blackness enabled by the Thirteenth Amendment brought chain gangs to the construction projects of the Panama Canal Zone.

Phosphorus is essential for fertilizing high-yield agriculture. The US domestic supply, restricted to Florida, is expected to run out in a couple of decades.

Given its strong gendered associations, it may be surprising that height hasn’t been well studied by historians.

During Indira Gandhi’s autocratic Emergency in 1975, one New Delhi coffeehouse became a key gathering place for opponents of her politics.

For millennia, Indigenous peoples in North America derived sustenance from the juneberry, known also as the misâskwatômin, serviceberry, shadbush, or saskatoon.

Once viewed as a precious item of mysterious origin, the seed of the coco do mer palm, though better understood today, remains a rare and valuable commodity.

While Nolde was one of the many victims of the Third Reich’s repressive responses to “degenerate art,” he was also one of Nazism’s great admirers.

Over decades, books that rouse children’s interest in the natural world have morphed in style and approach—an evolution reflective of tectonic societal change.