Across America, “big box” stores rise like bland jewels in settings made just for them—huge parking lots and highways built or diverted to direct traffic flow. With the landscape so altered, what happens when a chain abandons a... Read More

“Within a year after the nation’s political center had moved to Washington.” begins History of the Smithsonian, “when roads were still little more than paths through the trees, government buildings stood half-built, private... Read More

Charter schools. The No Child Left Behind Act. Cheating. Bullying. More than ever, parents have options for their children’s K-12 education and information is available about issues in every sphere of education—the social,... Read More

During the nineteenth-century, asylums for “fallen women” opened that were named for Mary Magdalene: a saint that many remember as a sinner. Though administrators and clergy proposed to offer reform and rehabilitation, the asylums... Read More

Video games as an educational tool: a surprising phenomenon to the general populace, but a hot topic of conferences and literature in the pedagogy of technology. In Reset: Changing the Way We Look at Video Games, DeMaria seeks to... Read More

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.” Ralph Waldo Emerson famously sounded this rallying call to individualism in his essay “Self-Reliance.” Emerson, along with... Read More

This book was a labor of love for the author, a science writer best known for co-discovering the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet. He establishes in the preface that poetry and stargazing have been early and abiding passions for him in almost... Read More

With controlled rhythms and a self-reflexive sense of the poet as lyricist, Smith’s eleventh book of poems, Messenger, finds revelation in music. The book’s first section, Savor of Moss, casts lyrical moments of grace against a... Read More