On October 28, the Israeli Knesset voted to shut down the operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and to designate it as a terrorist organization. While this drastic attack…

On August 28, Israel launched its largest military assault on the West Bank since the Second Intifada more than two decades ago. Targeting Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas—three cities in the north of the territory—“Operation Summer Camps” has killed thirty-nine Palestinians.…

In the international legal system, the Palestinian cause has made significant headway since the start of the war in Gaza. In addition to legal processes that have arisen from Israel’s conduct in the war itself—it stands formally accused of genocide…

Since Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel on October 7, the question of deterrence has loomed over the region: who holds it, what does it consist of, and how will the balance of forces tilt or not tilt towards…

Stephen Marglin is Walter S. Barker Professor Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught since he received tenure in 1968.

Few theorists of social movements have shaped the events that they analyze. Frances Fox Piven, Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the City University of New York and one of these few, has studied and agitated within American social…

Kim Phillips-Fein is an associate professor of history at New York University and the author of the books "Invisible Hands: the Businessmen’s Crusade Against the New Deal" and "Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics",…

Lorraine Daston has published widely in the history of science, including on probability and statistics, scientific objectivity and observation, game theory, monsters, and much else. Director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science since 1995 (emeritus as…

Software that structures increasingly detailed aspects of contemporary life is built for optimization. These programs require a mapping of the world in a way that is computationally legible, and translating the messy world into one that makes sense to a…