Christmas Specials
Pocock’s pen pals
The virtues of an unrepresentative sample
An epistolary history of Britain’s changing society
Shingle art
How one man made art out of nothingness
Rory McCormack, known as the Pebble Sculpture man, has been working on Brighton beach for 25 years—but few residents have ever seen him
Travels in Zululand
How an apartheid-era deal still afflicts the land of the Zulus
Sizani Ngubane hopes to bring an end to one of the most controversial institutions in South Africa
Essay
Awesome, weird and everything else
Being a girl is special, difficult and better than it used to be
Pleistocene Park
One Russian scientist hopes to slow the thawing of the Arctic
Sergei Zimov is a polarising figure, but the results from his Pleistocene Park seem promising so far
Reconstruction
Reconstruction reshaped America along lines contested today
The promises glimpsed in 14 years of the country’s history, between 1863 and 1877, remain unfulfilled
Digital humanities
How data analysis can enrich the liberal arts
But despite data science’s exciting possibilities, plenty of other academics object to it
Shaolin monastery
Tales of a “CEO monk” obscure the business of faith in China
Shaolin is the cradle of kung-fu and Zen Buddhism. Under its abbot it has opened international branches and made plans to list on the stockmarket
Bloodsuckers
How malaria has shaped humanity
The parasite shows how history is partly created by non-human forces