On the cover: Illustration by Pete Ryan

Letters

Letters from our readers

Beautiful math, guns, sexual harassment, and more

The View from Mass Hall

Noncommunication threatens Harvard mission

The perils of noncommunication

March-April 2020

On the cover: Illustration by Pete Ryan

Features

Frank Hu holds a plate filled with food.

Healthy Plate, Healthy Planet

Frank Hu confronts the triple threats of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change.

by Jacob Sweet

Pippa Norris on the global rise of populist authoritarianism

Harvard political scientist Pippa Norris chronicles the rise of populist authoritarians in Western democracies.

by Lydialyle Gibson

German author Karl May dressed as his Old West hero, Old Shatterhand

Karl May, best-selling German novelist

Brief life of a myth-making writer: 1842-1912

by Eugene Stelzig

An original eighteenth-century colonial map of Jamaica

Vincent Brown writes war and empire into the history of slavery

Vincent Brown writes war, empire, and slaves’ agency into the history of Atlantic slavery.

by Marina N. Bolotnikova

RIGHT NOW Harvard research and ideas

Illustration of human torso with affected organs highlighted

Short-term increases in air pollution linked to several new diseases

Researchers studying 95 million Medicare records find new fine-particle impacts in the blood, gut, skin, kidneys, and other organs.

Index funds defer to corporate management

Index funds cast a large proportion of proxy votes in U.S. companies, but take a hands-off approach with management.

Leadership without good judgment undermines government legitimacy

The right to rule depends not only on the way power is gained, but how it is wielded.

Frontiers

A common plasticizer causes infertility, and fructose affects fat metabolism.

John Harvard's Journal University news

Photograph of several players competing for the puck in front of the Harvard goal

Lindsay Reed, Harvard women’s ice-hockey goalie

The many saves of a six-foot goalie

Rewriting labor law from a clean slate

A Harvard Law School initiative calls for a revitalized labor law “to shift power from corporations to workers.”

Harvard Law School professor Alan Jenkins

A brief look at a Harvard Law School professor's long journey

An online Extension School course for high-school students

Literature professor Elisa New spearheads an online poetry course for talented students in underserved high schools.

Grass-roots organizing is focus of new book

Undergraduates contribute to a new book on grass-roots organizing at the center of American politics.

Professor arrested, giving guidelines, and a grad-student union update

A professor arrested, gift-giving guidelines, and an update on the graduate-student union

Headlines from Harvard’s history

Harvard Allston developer Law School shield and more

The Law School launches a “Shield Working Group,” Allston update, keeping tabs on “fake news,” and more

The Harvard’s Women’s Center and what it does

The Undergraduate writes about the Harvard Women’s Center.

A quest for perfect ice

Harvard’s Zamboni operators’ quest for the perfect sheet of ice

Montage Books, creative arts, performance, and more

Harvard SquaredWhat to do in Boston, Cambridge, and beyond

Photograph of Emily Dickinson’s family home, The Homestead, an elegant wooden building

Almuni Harvardians far and wide

Photograph of Steven Choi urging passage of driver’s license bill