SLAVERY INC. The Untold Story of International Sex Trafficking

Human trafficking—for sex, labor, and even organ selling—is among the most profitable businesses in the world, yet it is ignored or minimized by governments and mainstream society. Worse than governmental ignorance, perhaps, is the unwitting... Read More
PLATO AT THE GOOGLEPLEX: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s ode to philosophy, Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away, imagines a collision of worlds: What would happen if Plato, the famous philosopher, suddenly appeared in the twenty-first century? In... Read More
Book Review: Democracy’s Defender: The Life of L.M. Birkhead by Jim Grebe

Jim Grebe’s book Democracy’s Defender: The Life of L.M. Birkhead presents the life of a Methodist minister-turned humanist Unitarian minister-turned social activist. Born in Missouri in 1885, Leon Milton Birkhead was a man of reason... Read More
Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire

When the United States was very young—circa 1808—President Thomas Jefferson and the wealthy, successful businessman John Jacob Astor (fur trading, Manhattan real estate) had a joint brainstorm. In the aftermath of the Meriwether Lewis and... Read More
Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict

Some humanists endorse the ancient notion that a wise guy invented religion with an omniscient god so that people, who might otherwise do bad things, would stay in line for fear that the god was... Read More
Book Review: Greta Christina’s Coming Out Atheist

In Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other, and Why Greta Christina provides a highly readable, helpful guide to the issues atheists face on whether and how to come out... Read More
Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It

It’s a Wonderful Life is such a cheery movie, we forget that the main character, George Bailey, gets drunk, crashes his car into a tree, and is about to jump off a bridge when his... Read More