Author: TheConversation

By Kendall Hoyt, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Dartmouth College War and disease have marched arm in arm for centuries. Wars magnify the spread and severity of disease by disrupting populations. As large groups of people move across borders, they introduce and encounter disease in new places. Often, they move into crowded, resource-poor environments that allow diseases to thrive. Before World War II, soldiers died more often of disease than of battle injuries. The ratio of disease-to-battle casualties was approximately 5-to-1 in the Spanish-American War and 2-to-1 in the Civil War. Improved sanitation reduced disease casualties in World War I,...

By Robert Kozinets, University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism Big Tobacco is increasingly using social media to find new ways to hook young people on smoking, circumventing decades of laws restricting the marketing of traditional cigarettes to minors. In major cities around the world, tobacco companies have been holding extravagant events that were designed to connect with young people. Often featuring alcohol, live music, and attractive hosts, these lavish events spare no expense as they seek find new buyers for their tobacco products. The problem? Those party-goers are carefully targeted young influencers, who are encouraged...

By Nancy Martorano Miller, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Dayton Partisan gerrymandering is when a congressional or state legislative district map is drawn in a way the severely lessens the ability of one party, the minority party, to compete for seats in an election. The public is more aware of partisan gerrymandering than ever, and less supportive of it. Reform is happening. In 2018, five states reformed their redistricting processes to reduce partisan gerrymandering. There is the potential for redistricting reform in another seven states before the 2021 redistricting process begins. A handful of states may even...

By Sarah Mayorga-Gallo, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Boston Cities in the United States are getting less segregated and, according to a recent national survey, most Americans value the country’s racial diversity. But the demographic integration of a neighborhood doesn’t necessarily mean that neighbors of different races are socializing together. Diverse urban areas remain socially segregated in part because white gentrifiers and long-time residents have differing economic interests. And the racial hierarchies of the United States are simply not erased when black and white people share the same space. White residents of multicultural areas tend to overlook...

Rebecca Fasman, Manager of Traveling Exhibitions at the Kinsey Institute, Indiana University From the late 1920s until his death in 1955, George Platt Lynes was one of the world’s most successful commercial and fine art photographers. His work was included in one of the first exhibitions to showcase photography at the Museum of Modern Art in 1932, and he showed at the extremely popular Julien Levy Gallery in New York City. His photographs for Vogue and Bazaar, his shots of dancers at the School of American Ballet and his portraits of some of the most important creative figures of...

By Richard Gardiner, Associate Professor of History Education, Columbus State University In the years following the bitter Civil War, a former Union general took a holiday originated by former Confederates and helped spread it across the entire country. The holiday was Memorial Day, and this year’s commemoration on May 28 marks the 150th anniversary of its official nationwide observance. The annual commemoration was born in the former Confederate States in 1866 and adopted by the United States in 1868. It is a holiday in which the nation honors its military dead. General John A. Logan, who headed the largest...