Support First Things by turning your adblocker off or by making a  donation. Thanks!

The Truth About Bill Gates

What is it like to be a billionaire? I can imagine what it’s like to be a millionaire. I live in London, where millionaires are never very distant. A few of the people I went to school with are millionaires already, and in another decade or so, more of them will be. Millionaires are people who . . . . Continue Reading »

A “Somewhere” Composer

It’s about a quarter to ten at night on August 17, 2019, and I’m standing outside the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, smiling. It’s one of those Edinburgh Festival nights when the streets are still crowded but there’s already a foretaste of autumn in the air, a warning chill in the sea breezes that . . . . Continue Reading »

Catholicism and the Nation

In 1965, the Second Vatican Council adopted Gaudium et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. With this document, the Church sought to address “the whole of humanity.” In a way, this aspiration was not surprising. Christian doctrine holds that Christ died for the . . . . Continue Reading »

Grander and Weirder

The Ur-Bororo are the most boring people in the world. Their entire population, which is not large, lives in “dwelling sheds,” rectangular clapboard houses in the depths of the Amazon rainforest. Other jungle tribes tend to decorate their bodies with elaborate tattoos, lip plugs, or ritual . . . . Continue Reading »

Filter Tag Articles