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The Roman Empire’s Cosmopolitan Frontier
At its peak , the Roman Empire stretched from North Africa to northern Britain and was home to perhaps a quarter of the world’s population. The early Empire’s well-documented center in Rome, a vibrant hub of trade and communication, drew an ethnically …
Michelle Yeoh’s Three Tips for Success
Against the backdrop of Harvard Law School’s (HLS) Langdell Hall—where the HLS class of 2023 spent countless hours studying—Academy Award-winning actress and Class Day speaker Michelle Yeoh shared a guide to “jumping into voids.” Most know Yeoh from her …
Yearning for an Upswing
Rereading, while in self-imposed quarantine, the jittery U.S.A. trilogy by John Dos Passos about the America of 100 years ago—a cynical, fractious, increasingly extremist place disillusioned with the rich, the powerful, and the media—produces a jarring …
Issue: November-December 2020
Time to Tax Carbon
Next year , representatives from nations around the world will meet in Paris to discuss a global climate-change agreement that would take effect in 2020. Central to those discussions will be setting a price on carbon and its equivalents—a figure that …
Issue: September-October 2014
Joseph Aldy
When Joseph Aldy trekked up Mount Kilimanjaro with his father in 2000, he was a long way from the farm in Kentucky where he grew up—but close to the things that matter to him. Aldy is an economist who works on energy and climate-change policy. He loves to …
Issue: March-April 2012
AI Anxiety
I recently copy-pasted an essay I’d written on Boston abolitionist movements into ChatGPT. “Chat,” I commanded, “please list three ways this essay is successful, and three areas for potential improvement.” The machine spat out an answer instantly, and as …
Issue: March-April 2025
University People
Press Changes William P. Sisler Photograph by Stu Rosner William P. Sisler, director of Harvard University Press since 1990, will retire at the end of the academic year. His tenure saw the publication of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas …
Issue: March-April 2017
Steve Jobs Biographer Is Harvard Overseer
The authorized biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, to be released October 24, is written by Walter Isaacson ’74, CEO of the Aspen Institute, the former managing editor of Time magazine, and a Harvard Overseer . After Jobs died October 5 of …
Ivy League Announces No Sports in Fall
The first domino has fallen. The Ivy League announced today that athletic competition will not resume during the upcoming fall semester, becoming the first in Division I to shelve fall sports. The news comes days after the University announced a …
Carrie Lambert-Beatty: What Happens When an Artwork Deceives Its Audience?
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A WORK OF ART DECEIVES ITS AUDIENCE? The term “parafiction” refers to an artistic performance or presentation that depicts fiction as fact. This idea has particular relevance for our current post-truth moment, in which Americans find …
Harvard Aims to Become Fossil-Fuel-Free by 2050
President Drew Faust announced today that Harvard will strive to become fossil-fuel-neutral by 2026, and fossil-fuel-free by 2050. These ambitious goals are being unveiled a year after the University declared success in reducing its greenhouse-gas …
Harvard’s Honorary-Degree Recipients 2018
During the Morning Exercises of the 367th Commencement, on May 24, Harvard planned to confer honorary degrees on a relatively small cohort, comprising three women and four men. They include four distinguished leaders in the arts, an area of particular …
Jill Abramson ’76 Named Executive Editor of New York Times
Jill Abramson '76 has been named executive editor of the New York Times , the newspaper announced today—the first woman to hold the top editorial post. She has been managing editor since 2003—one of two executives responsible for overseeing the newsroom. …
University People
Vice President’s Ciao Ann E. Berman Stephanie Mitchell / Harvard News Office Vice president for finance Ann E. Berman will relinquish the position next April. Berman, who has lived in and worked from Italy during the summer months since her appointment in …
Issue: November-December 2005
Sexual Violence in India’s Headlines
In recent years , news coverage of sexual violence in India has increased, but the Indian press’s coverage has serious flaws—including a tendency to ignore victims from underprivileged backgrounds and to print sensationalistic depictions of rape—according …