Daniel McCarthy; Germany's migration crisis; the swimming suffragettes

The Lord of the Rings made J.R.R. Tolkien one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. But who was the obsessive, conservative and often difficult man behind Middle-earth? And Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, has a new and equally remarkable true story to tell. In 1…

Our regular US political commentator on the Cornell University sexual assault case, the failed execution of Christa Pike, and the dire outlook for the Republicans, four weeks before the midterms. Valerie Trouet, a paleo-climate scientist, compares tree rings from living trees with historical and ar…

The German Peasants' War was the greatest popular uprising in Western Europe before the French Revolution. In 1524 and 1525, it swept across Germany with astonishing speed as thousands of people massed in armed bands to demand a new and more egalitarian order. The response from feudal overlords was…

Confronted with a series of existential threats, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor argue in their new book that wealthy billionaires, including the so-called "tech bros", have become focused not on how we can deal with those threats,  but who will best survive them.  They warn there is an urgent need fo…