Charles Darwin was stumped by peacocks. According to his theory of evolution, some creatures were better equipped to survive in their particular environment tha ...

A first impression suggests that there is nothing to be gained from reading Alex Bellos’s new book of puzzles, Think Twice (Puzzle me Twice in the US), except ...

Mozart and Haydn were composing string quartets a quarter of a millennium ago, when the industrial revolution was in its infancy. Since then, the scale of the world economy has increased at least a ...

In 1827, Edinburgh, Scotland was a world centre for anatomical study, but there was a shortage of cadavers for medical students to dissect. Two men, William Burke and William Hare, spotted a grim ...

India, 1930. Sarojini Naidu is marching towards a British-controlled saltwork; behind her is a long column of protestors all dressed in white. The great campaigner for India’s Independence, Gandhi, is ...

From time to time, my editor will suggest that I write a column about how to be more productive. It’s a sure way to trigger imposter syndrome because, whether or not I appear productive from the ...

At the London School of Economics, a few weeks before Christmas, in 1949, the Lionel Robbins seminar was about to begin. The prestigious event was at the razor’s edge of postwar economic thought: ...

A first impression suggests that there is nothing to be gained from reading Alex Bellos’s new book of puzzles, Think Twice (Puzzle me Twice in the US), except an hour or so of pleasant diversion. But ...

In 1827, Edinburgh, Scotland was a world centre for anatomical study, but there was a shortage of cadavers for medical students to dissect. Two men, William Burke and William Hare, spotted a grim ...

In 1827, Edinburgh, Scotland was a world centre for anatomical study, but there was a shortage of cadavers for medical students to dissect. Two men, William Burke and William Hare, spotted a grim ...