July-August 2006

The Power Problem Part of the problem in energizing a passive public about the carbon problem is that the term “global warming” is…

“Sex sells.” Now sex cells sell, too. In 2004 more than a million infertile Americans paid dearly to conceive a child. Although…

What are readings from Sophocles, Chinua Achebe, and Joseph Conrad doing in a Harvard Business School course? And why is the professor talking…

Garlic mustard, Alliaria petiolata, a European native, immigrated to the United States in the 1800s, says Kristina Stinson, “perhaps…

Imagine the brain as a giant filing cabinet. The puzzle of deciphering the labels on the drawers has occupied many a scientist and philosopher…

How powerful is the United States, and how should it relate to the rest of the world? Is America a new version of the Roman Empire? These…

Beach Stones, photographs by Josie Iselin ’84, text by Margaret W. Carruthers (Abrams, $17.95). Here is an international gathering of…

Anne Daniels wonders if someone can identify the following statement, which was “evidently well-known in England in the 1890s”: Is…

Ethnographer Robert A. McKennan, Ph.D. ’33, spent 1929 through 1933 documenting life in several remote Native villages in the interior of…

Beat the heat this summer by exploring an assortment of activities in and around Harvard Square, ranging from a splash of eclectic exhibitions…

Last summer Lucy and Richard Sallick visited a horse farm, an olive-oil factory, and the museums of Florence—all with their grandchildren…

This essay is adapted from the 2005-2006 Maurine and Robert Rothschild Lecture, delivered on April 24 under the sponsorship of the Radcliffe…

Splendiferous in his purple Russian blouse, with shaggy hair and beard, Hervey White, A.B. 1894, helped transform a tiny village in the…

David Blackbourn has an affection for fens and marshes, lush, low-lying polders and high moors of heath and bog. When he leaves his home in…

The job of remaking the Mississippi River, Mark Twain wrote in the 1870s, is “a job transcended in size only by the original job of…

By the time he reached his early thirties, James was a promising scientist who had all the makings of an academic star. He had earned a stream…

Is psychiatry an empirical science that studies brain functioning, or a form of humanism that studies the inner workings of the mind in its…

Despite remarkable advances in the treatment of mild mood and anxiety disorders in recent years, many people with severe depression do not find…

The Tuesday of Commencement week, June 6, was radiant—perfect weather for the seniors to march from the Old Yard to Memorial Church…

Two women and seven men received honorary degrees at Harvard’s 355th Commencement. Provost Steven E. Hyman introduced them to the…

Lots of M.B.A.s On Commencement day, Thursday, June 8, Harvard conferred 6,706 degrees and 248 certificates. The College granted 1,641 of these…

In his Commencement address, President Summers reviewed his priorities. A detailed report on his tenure will appear in the next issue. &nbsp…

Near the start of his address, journalist Jim Lehrer, who collects bus memorabilia, gave a splendid rendition of a Trailways boarding call…

Commencement’s first product placement, managed by new doctors of dental medicine Prathima Prasanna, of Presque Isle, Maine, and Amy…

A very long bookshelf in Jens Meierhenrich’s Harvard office holds a complete transcript of the Nuremberg trial of major war criminals, in…

Harvard’s global ambitions to study and know more about the world, and to send more students out into it, were triply boosted at the end…

In the fall of 2003, Juliet Girard ’07 arrived at Harvard with first-rate scientific ambitions and a second-rate education. She had grown…

Jay O. Light, an expert in finance and investment management, was named dean of Harvard Business School (HBS)—the ninth since its founding…

Kathleen McCartney Photograph by Dina Konovalovia/A Dream Picture Kathleen McCartney, Lesser professor in early childhood development…

1916The Faculty Committee on the Use of English by Students reports that undergraduates “write bad English because of sheer ignorance…

Source: Harvard Office of Budgets, Financial Planning, and Institutional…

On the chill, blustery afternoon of May 1, a piece of Harvard’s living history lit up the Faculty Room in University Hall. The occasion…

On March 23, the London Review of Books published a long essay on “The Israel Lobby,” by Harrison distinguished service professor of…

Harvard’s Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences (DEAS) may soon become a full-fledged school of engineering, under a plan presented…

David E. Clapham Robert J. Sampson Harvard Medical School Courtesy of Robert J. Sampson Superior Scientists The 72 new members of the…

Harvard and other celebrated research universities “succeed, better than ever, as creators and repositories of knowledge,” declares…

Much work on refashioning the undergraduate curriculum remains for the next academic year, but the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) concluded…

Fulfilling its pledge to create formal channels through which to hear faculty and student ideas and views, the Corporation-Overseer committee…

Peak Professors John Y. Campbell John H. Coatsworth Justin Ide / Harvard News Office Justin Ide / Harvard News Office The Faculty of…

Harvard College has only one course required of every student: “Expository Writing.” Better known simply as “Expos,” the…

Kaavya Viswanathan’s 15 minutes of fame proved unusually nasty and brutish as well as short. Publicity profiles anticipating the…

 Recently, my mom was putting books onto a new bookshelf when a red one fell to the floor. “What is this?” she asked, in a…

Seventy-eight feet away at the other end of the tennis court, she doesn’t seem prepossessing. The young Aussie stands five feet, two…

Baseball Harvard (21-20-1 overall) finished the Ivy season with the league’s best record, 14-6, winning the tough Red Rolfe division by…

Record it for the history books: the last of 646 football games played on natural grass at Harvard Stadium since 1903 is over and gone—the…

Last year the nonprofit Trust for Public Land (TPL) released a study on transforming a 22-mile loop of largely abandoned railroad tracks and…

With the death of Robert G. Stone Jr. ’45, LL.D. ’03, on April 25, the University lost a rare friend. The longtime member of the…

Each June, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Centennial Medal, first awarded in 1989 on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the…

The names of the new members of the Board of Overseers and the new elected directors of the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) were announced at…

Four seniors have won Harvard Cambridge scholarships to study at Cambridge University during the 2006-2007 academic year. Physics and…

The oldest graduates of Harvard and Radcliffe present on Commencement day were 97-year-old Bertha O. Fineberg ’31, of Gloucester…

The University had received $506 million in gifts through May 31 of the fiscal year, $13 million ahead of donation totals at the same time a…

Ten years ago, when Kenneth R. Rossano, secretary for the class of 1956, was chairing the HAA’s Radcliffe-Harvard Relations Committee, a…

Members of the College class of 2006 marched to their Baccalaureate service on Tuesday, June 6, behind their class banner and their elected…

The Harvard Alumni Association surprised President Lawrence H. Summers during its annual meeting on June 8 by awarding him a Harvard Medal for…

In the summer of 2003, a new eatery popped up among the numerous meat-and-potato diners and Sunday-morning-Bloody-Mary bars in Spooner, a…

Mainstream pop culture churns out plenty of rockers and rappers, but Derrick N. Ashong ’97, G ’08, is plugged into a different…

Several years ago, Marilyn Powell, Ph.D. ’66, sat at a gelateria with several friends, indulging herself while playing an impromptu game:…

"Your wooden arm you hold outstretched to shake with passers-by." Caroline Healey Dall (1822-1912) was a transcendentalist…

Photographs by Jim Harrison Herbs, roots, spices, ointments, lohochs, electuaries, syrups, aromatic waters, et cetera, et cetera—the…