The city of Pontianak is notable for sharing its name with a vengeful folkloric revenant known by various monikers across the Malay Archipelago.

In the late 1800s, German American singing festivals united German immigrant communities and brought new kinds of cultural activities to the United States.

Seventeenth-century science was so competitive that Christiaan Huygens used a cipher to conceal his Saturn observations when sharing them with interlocutors.

Computer simulations reveal the unlikely birth of a world-changing technology nearly 6,000 years ago.

Take a moment to contemplate the history and complexity of Independence Day, American Style.

Observers have long hailed Japan’s aptitude for cultural synthesis. Is this characterization warranted, or does it reflect a collective fantasy about exceptionalism?

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.