Health involves both measures, like taking our blood pressure, and perceptions—the ideas we hold in our heads about what it means to be healthy. As California attracted a more diverse cross section of people from around the world, those ideas began to change, and once-risky enterprises—from acupuncture to eating very spicy foods or drinking a glass of wine every day—are …

A Saudi journalist living in the United States is murdered by agents of a government to which America provides arms. President Trump openly favors autocratic rulers from Russia to Hungary to the Philippines, and even expresses “love” for North Korea’s dictator. What does it mean when the president of the United States, a country long cast as a defender of …

The United States is envied around the world for its unparalleled wealth. But its riches would not have been possible without what Alan Greenspan has called America’s “unique tolerance” for the messy effects of capitalism’s creative destruction. What is so special about our brand of capitalism that generations of Americans have been willing to endure so much wrenching change in …

It’s age-old wisdom: Every single new justice creates a brand-new U.S. Supreme Court. But some legal scholars are suggesting that the court taking shape now, with a conservative majority established by President Trump’s second appointee, could make especially broad changes in the law. Long-established precedents on matters of race, sex, religion, and privacy could be overturned. And the basic structure …

American icon Frederick Douglass died in 1895, but he still makes the news. Indeed, he represents an increasingly rare sort of hero—one whose story is invoked across the political spectrum. Perhaps that’s because his life was so large, grand, and complex. He was among the most photographed and well-traveled people of the 19th century and had so many varied roles—radical …