Toby Lester

A journey through Alsace-Lorraine to the town that gave America its name

Watching a play by Euripides or reading poetry by Sappho is perhaps as incomplete an experience today as watching a "play" by Wagner or reading "poetry" by Stephen Sondheim would be

Religion didn't begin to wither away during the twentieth century, as some academic experts had prophesied. Far from it. And the new century will probably see religion explode—in both intensity and variety. New religions are springing up everywhere. Old ones are mutating with Darwinian restlessness. And the big "problem religion" of the twenty-first century may not be the one you think

It used to be that business and technology were considered the enemies of privacy. Not anymore

An e-mail interview with Steven Levy, the author of Crypto: When the Code Rebels Beat the Government—Saving Privacy in the Digital Age  

Are the works of artist J.S.G. Boggs just defaced dollar bills? Or works of art worth $420,000? A look at an artist whose work has been raising some disconcerting questions about money and worth

Researchers with a variety of academic and theological interests are proposing controversial theories about the Koran and Islamic history, and are striving to reinterpret Islam for the modern world. This is, as one scholar puts it, a "sensitive business"

A conversation with Edward O. Wilson

It's tough suddenly changing from one alphabet to another. Azerbaijan is on its third one this century