“We’re ridding the world of polytheism, and spreading monotheism across the planet,” an ISIS preacher recently said in a video recording. Behind him one could see the ISIS faithful using sledgehammers, bulldozers, and explosives to destroy the eighth-century-BC citadel of the Assyrian king Sargon II at Khorsabad, ten miles northwest of Mosul in northern Iraq, and the colossal statues of… more
Among the regular cast of characters who populate the pages of Hungary’s newspapers and magazines, the one whose fame is hardest to understand in a country long proud of its disproportionate share of Olympic medals and Nobel Prizes may be the man usually identified simply as the prime minister’s dentist. Bela Batorfi’s rise to fame can… more
The Tokushukai Medical Corporation operates more than 280 hospitals in Japan, enough for the company to often find itself described as the world’s largest hospital chain. In 2006, Tokushukai opened its first overseas facility, in Bulgaria, and I had been prepared for its incongruity amid the dreary blocks south of Sofia’s downtown. “If you drive… more
In an age when twenty million refugees are displaced worldwide, when passports are easily bought and sold, and when whole countries might soon be submerged by rising tides, are national borders truly relevant? Adapted from The Cosmopolites and published in Columbia Magazine. So many stories begin with borders. I was brought up with no sense of a… more
Much has been written about ISIS, and much has been made about the group's bloodlust. The self-proclaimed Islamic State has a fondness for public massacres and beheadings, raped thousands of Yazidi women, looted museums, and destroyed historic sites. ISIS's celebrations of depravity, and the force and speed with which it has taken to its violence,… more
In simple environments, people acquire new capabilities by acquiring new objects. In complex environments, people acquire new capabilities by using new services. And as anyone who’s busily added apps to their smartphone knows, the one problem apps are no good at solving is the problem of having too many apps. Environments with rising complexity always… more
There are a lot of people in China. This fact can seem like a bit of local color, a background association like France and cheese or Thailand and beaches. For people who live here, though, and especially for people who work here, population is a force like gravity, affecting almost everything else. Once you leave… more
A couple of years ago, while I was doing some work at NYU’s Shanghai campus, I got lost on the subway. As a New Yorker, it takes a lot to make me feel like a country mouse, but at triple the population of my hometown, Shanghai does it. Even though the Shanghai subway system is… more
“If the housing market tanks, so does the stock market. No matter who you are, this is hugely impactful. And no one is talking about it. No one realizes it.” —Ryan Israel, partner at Pershing Square Capital Management. On a bitterly cold gray day in December 2014, there was a strangely large crowd at the… more
