Conservative movements to reform education are often defined by what they’re against. At a recent public briefing, the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, decried the imposition of critical race theory and mandatory diversity-and-inclusion training at the state’s schools.
The former President’s campaigns against officials investigating him have supplied Joe Biden with a favored theme: the need to fortify democratic institutions.
(BBC News reports that traces of a Roman street and timber buildings were uncovered in southwest England at the site of the cloister garden at Exeter Cathedral during an investigation ahead of the construction of a new cloister gallery.
An impressive selection of grave goods including roe deer antlers (top) that could have been worn as a headdress and boars’ teeth (middle) and tusks (above) with holes drilled in them enabling them to be suspended from an animal skin were found in a 9,000-year-old shaman’s burial.
Bad Dürrenberg is a modest spa town in eastern Germany, perched on a bluff overlooking the Saale River. On a Friday afternoon in 1934, workers were laying pipe to supply the spa’s fountain with water when they came across red-tinted earth.
Americans spent 53 billion hours on TikTok last year, according to one Wall Street estimate. If the service is banned in the U.S., much of that time could go to Meta, YouTube, and Snap. What it all means for stocks.
With high concentrations of commercial real estate loans, these midsize lenders could come under pressure. But they look to be managing the risks well.
The Burlington Magazine – April 2023: Few paintings capture the exhilaration of the arrival of spring as powerfully as Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Orchard in blossom, bordered by cypresses’, a detail of which is on the cover of our newly published April issue.
The manifold collections of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, include rich holdings of the decorative arts, international in scope, with a natural bias towards the Netherlands. But unlike the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, products of the nineteenth-century campaign to improve design, the Rijksmuseum, a national museum of art and history, had no strong motive to collect design drawings (although the Rijksprentenkabinet, housed in the museum, contains one of the world’s great assemblages of engraved ornament).
An air of anticipation has greeted the fourth anniversary of the fire that broke out on 15th April 2019 and destroyed the medieval roof of Notre-Dame, Paris, together with its flèche, designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1859. The main controversies surrounding the restoration having been settled – as reported in this Magazine, in July 2020 the French government announced that the roof and flèche will be rebuilt as they were, using the same materials as the original – attention has turned to the discoveries being made and to the restoration process.
The New Review (April 2, 2023) – How running helped me navigate the strange terrain of grief An extract from @drrachelhewitt’s memoir, In Her Nature @ChattoBooks.
An actor returns to Palestine and joins a local production of Hamlet in this richly layered and elegant examination of memories and oppression
The West Bank town of Jenin: ‘what could offer a more febrile union of the personal and the political than Palestine?’ Photograph: Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP/Getty Images
Just like relationships between people, relationships between countries can all too easily be built on a foundation of unintentional misunderstandings, faulty assumptions and predigested truths. In her forthcoming, at times provocative and disquieting book, “The New China Playbook,” Keyu Jin, a professor at the London School of Economics and a board member at Credit Suisse, is trying to rework the foundation of what she sees as the West’s deeply flawed understanding of China’s economy, its economic ambitions and its attitude toward global competition.
Randi Schofield is the sole provider for an ailing father and, at the same time, for her own children — a situation now common among Americans in their 30s and 40s.
France-Amérique Magazine – April 2023 – Ahead of Earth Day, April 22, we profiled five Gallic startups based in the United States and helping biodiversity, fighting against food waste, and curbing global warming. We also sat down with Tristan Grimbert, the French CEO of EDF Renewables North America, one of the leaders on the green energy market in the United States and Canada. Also in this issue, read about the 15-Minute City, a model born in Paris and advocating for livable, sustainable urban centers; discover our profile of Gérard Araud, the former ambassador of France to the U.S. and a sharp observer of international relations; and read our interview with William Christie, the American conductor who has done more than anyone else for the revival of French baroque music.
“French Classical Music Owes a Lot to American Universities”
American harpsichordist and conductor William Christie has arguably done more than anyone else for the global revival of French baroque music. He now lives in France, but on April 25-26, he will bring his ensemble Les Arts Florissants to Carnegie Hall.
Table of contents
FROM THE NEWSDESK
France Rethinks, Once Again, Its Relationship with Africa. By Anthony Bulger
COME ON OUT
French Cultural Events in North America. By Tracy Kendrick
EDITORIAL
Wokeness Dividing the (French) People. By Guy Sorman
INTERVIEW
Julie Taymor: “The Lion King Makes People Laugh from Paris to New York.” By Guy Sorman
THE OBSERVER
Why the 15-Minute City May Be Your Next Home. By Anthony Bulger
BUSINESS
Five French Entrepreneurs Caring for the Planet. By Benoît Georges
Science Magazine – March 31, 2023 issue: A new analysis shows that Great Plains tribes acquired horses much earlier than some historians had thought, consistent with Indigenous descriptions of a long and enduring partnership with the horse. This petroglyph, from the Tolar site in southern Wyoming, probably dates from soon after the modern horse became widespread in North America in the early 17th century.
Chinese officials rage at what they see as American bullying
You may have hoped that when China reopened and face-to-face contact resumed between politicians, diplomats and businesspeople, Sino-American tensions would ease in a flurry of dinners, summits and small talk. But the atmosphere in Beijing just now reveals that the world’s most important relationship has become more embittered and hostile than ever.
The world’s most important crop is fuelling climate change and diabetes
The green revolution was one of the greatest feats of human ingenuity. By promoting higher-yielding varieties of wheat and, especially, rice, plant-breeders in India, Mexico and the Philippines helped China emerge from a famine and India avoid one. From 1965 to 1995 Asia’s rice yields doubled and its poverty almost halved, even as its population soared.
The government’s retreat has pulled Israel back from the brink. But its people remain deeply divided
Israel’s citizens have won a rare victory after marching, week after week, to defend judicial independence and the character of their democracy. On March 27th they forced their prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to suspend his plan to rein in the courts. Yet, although the crisis has abated, it has not passed.
The New York Review of Books – April 20, 2023 issue:The London Book Fair Issue—is online now, with Cathleen Schine on Maxine Hong Kingston’s talking-stories, Jameel Jaffer on the “ethical train wreck” at the Office of Legal Counsel, Rumaan Alam on Namwali Serpell, Geoffrey O’Brien remembers Joe Brainard, Michelle Nijhuis on swamps and bogs, E. Tammy Kim on the legend of Harry Bridges, John Banville on John le Carré, Mark O’Connell on the world without us, Manisha Sinha on antebellum Black citizens, Matthew Desmond on handouts for the rich, poems by Homer and Isabel Galleymore, and much more.
Two recent books show that the concept of ecological restoration is a fuzzy one: even practitioners rarely agree on what is being restored, or to what end.
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
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