J. O. Famakinwa (OAU): Interpreting the Right to Life. In the struggle between the freewheeling openness of the internet and developers' Apple-inspired desire to control the user experience — the Un-internet — the internet always prevails. It’s difficult to find a Russian author of note who has not written for Snob, billionaire Mikhail Prokorov’s luxury lit mag. Film censorship in post-Stalin Russia was neither rational, nor a product of ideology; as historian Martine Godet convincingly shows, it was rather the result of a fluid and unpredictable process, where status and stratagems played a key role. Magnificent Visions: In Amazonian Peru, Ted Mann traces the source of the powerful Stone Age botanical hallucinogen ayahuasca. Rodney Dubey on E.P. Taylor and how monopoly took over a sport. A review of Le choc de l’Histoire: Religion, memoire, identite by Dominique Venner. A mathematical model determines which nations are more stable and which are more likely to break up. Jeff Weintraub on how obituaries for humanitarian intervention may be premature. A new book claims that the notorious emperor Caligula got a bad rap — Scott McLemee scrolls through it. A review of Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization by Richard Miles. The media industry has undergone dramatic changes in its technologies and business models; Books and Ideas takes the discussion away from simplistic dichotomies between the Internet and the so-called “traditional” press. A review of Anarchism and Sexuality: Ethics, Relationships and Power.
