Essays

Farming is venerated in India, chiefly by those who are not farmers. An overwhelming majority of India’s farmers are unable to share this quaint adoration because they are impoverished.

When it comes to seed selection, a million heads are better than one. The process of farmer plant improvement is general right across the rice-growing region in West Africa, and keeping planting material in play through constant use and selection allows for a myriad of adaptation decisions.

Baum created what was essentially the first American fairytale, not just written by an American author, but firmly rooted on U.S. soil. Although there had been a few fantasy stories published in this country, none were so defiantly American.

Children who compose text by hand produce more words more quickly than doing so by keyboard, and expressed more ideas.

A lifelong devotee of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s famous book believes it was written as a means of catharsis, a format for working through the author’s angst and examining repressed memories. But perhaps it was also simply a means of escaping the horrors of man and instead immersing himself in the gentler, more innocent, world of children.

The world’s many endangered languages should not be preserved simply because of the simple, and shaky, notion that they preserve cultural world views. They should instead be preserved for their aesthetic and cognitive value.

The struggle of two Uzbek journalists shows how the “rules” of online activism—that social media campaigns can inspire widespread support and even changes in policy—are in fact the exception.

Threats and fans have followed Ilan Stavans ever since he announced on Barcelona radio in 2002 his intention to translate Cervantes into Spanglish. This time, it’s for real.

In the old days of language usage, speakers took their commands from lexicographers who wrote the rules of what words meant. Thanks to the Internet, that chain of command has been called into deep question.

Jackie Robinson’s famous 1944 court-martial revealed not just the hierarchy of power in language, but also the tension between the U.S. Army’s efforts of integration and the ongoing struggle of black soldiers in their fight against Jim Crow.