By Alan Levinovitz | As long as national parks have existed, people conceived of them in religious terms. In his book “Discovery of the Yosemite,” the nineteenth-century explorer Lafayette Bunnell described the valley as hallowed ground. Yosemite wasn’t just beautiful, it was holy, “the very innermost sanctuary of all that is Divine in material creation,” a place where visitors could “commune with Nature’s God.” When his companions failed to behave respectfully, Bunnell reacted as one would in church. Read more →

By Alan Levinovitz | The value of inclusiveness, like fairness, is written into the International Association of Athletics Federations’ (IAAF) official constitution. One of the organization’s primary goals is “to strive to ensure that no gender, race, religious, political or other kind of unfair discrimination exists, continues to exist, or is allowed to develop in Athletics in any form, and that all may participate in Athletics regardless of their gender, race, religious or political views or any other irrelevant factor.” That gender shouldn’t affect one’s ability to participate in athletics is now taken for granted, but only after overcoming centuries of pseudoscientific sexism arguing that women were naturally unfit to compete. Read more →

Can you taste it? The taste of joy when quarantine ends, the panic shopping eases up, and we can get on with the new reality of civilian life. The coronavirus pandemic will change the way we live. However the new reality takes shape, we’ll be ready and eager to get back outside. Not to mention delirious with relief. Until then, safety first. But at least we have plenty of books to turn to as resources and for escape during quarantine! Read more →

A Q&A with Alan Levinovitz | While researching people’s attitudes towards food, I found that the idea of naturalness came up constantly. The “right” diet was a “natural” diet. And yet, despite widespread agreement on the goodness of what’s natural, there was complete disagreement about the meaning of the term. As I started paying more attention to the term, I realized that using “natural” as a vague synonym for “good” or “right” was omnipresent in virtually every aspect of human culture. Read more →