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Liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness – these American values are often associated with the Declaration of Independence or the Statue of Liberty. In fact, write archeologists Lewis Borck and D. Shane Miller, these ideals can be traced back thousands of years, to the nomadic native peoples who occupied North America well before the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus “discovered” it. In an era of anti-immigrant politics and closing borders, it’s worth knowing that indigenous people helped originate the “American Dream.”
Plus read about our piece by Jeanne-Marie Jackson explaining how a new body of African literature is beginning to challenge old orthodoxies and why a handful of new “Afropolitan” names should be welcomed and old assumptions discarded.
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The 2016 Standing Rock protest was only the most recent manifestation of the indigenous American values inherited by European settlers on this land.
James MacPherson
Lewis Borck, Leiden University; D. Shane Miller, Mississippi State University
Anti-immigrant policies ignore that American ideals like liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness can be traced back to the indigenous pioneers who once moved freely across North America.
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Arts + Culture
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Jeanne-Marie Jackson, Johns Hopkins University
There is a thriving counter-current of transnational African literary life that confounds rather than caters to an international taste for "digestible" fiction.
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Environment + Energy
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Kai Schwärzel, United Nations University
China has successfully implemented afforestation to counter desertification. But, today, it faces another risk: its waters are declining.
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Joan A. Casey, University of California, Berkeley; Peter James, Harvard Medical School ; Rachel Morello-Frosch, University of California, Berkeley
New research shows that noise pollution in US cities is concentrated in poor and minority communities. Beyond regulating airplane noise, the US has done relatively little to curb noise pollution.
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Health + Medicine
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Philippe Cullet, SOAS, University of London
Cultural, social and environmental factors all matter if India wants to succeed in its goal to boost sanitation.
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Politics + Society
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Simon Toubeau, University of Nottingham
The potential for more violence is clear unless the two sides can be brought to the negotiating table as soon as possible.
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Science + Technology
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Michael Marshall, World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)
A new approach to monitor changes to the earth's surface uses maps that consist of physical and human geographic data to explain what's changed.
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