Ideas - The Boston Globe

IDEAS | ULBE BOSMA

The sugar baron of Boston

The little-known story of Edwin F. Atkins, whose Belmont family’s vast cane plantations in 19th- and early 20th-century Cuba created a vast fortune and left a complicated legacy.

IDEAS | TYLER HARPER

I am the wrong kind of Black professor

I’ve staked my career on my interest in the dead white men of 19th-century British letters. I can’t count the times I’ve been told what a waste it is that I’ve done so.

Calling teen writers! Globe Ideas wants to give you a megaphone.

Rather than write about you, we want to hear from you.

Martin Feldmann and MIT professor John Hart in a factory operated by VulcanForms in Devens, Mass.

IDEAS | DAVID SCHARFENBERG

The most interesting startup in America is in Massachusetts. You’ve probably never heard of it.

VulcanForms eyes a radical transformation of manufacturing.

Geo Bustamante, Karla Cruz Godoy, James Jones, Ryan Medrano, and Cassidy Clark faced host Jeff Probst on "Survivor" in 2022.

IDEAS | KEVIN LEWIS

Social Studies: Surviving bias on ‘Survivor’; outrage on Twitter; don’t quit your day job

Surprising findings from the social sciences.

Antiabortion demonstrators outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Fairview Heights, Ill., in 2022.

IDEAS | MARY ZIEGLER

Don’t rule out a national abortion ban in 2025

Activists think they have a path to stopping abortions nationwide. It runs through the White House, the Supreme Court, and an arcane 19th-century law.

may i have a word?

May I have a word: We are literally abusing ‘literally’ to death
Readers weigh in with new coinages to replace an old word.

May I have a word: Melightful distakes and other tips of the slongue

May I have a word: Talking about one’s own devices

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special projects

IDEAS | DAVID SCHARFENBERG

How Uphams Corner got wealthier without getting whiter

The scrappy Dorchester neighborhood has fulfilled the community activist’s dream: development without displacement.

Where did all the workers go?

For two years, employers have been desperate for workers — and there’s no indication the labor shortage will soon change. What are we losing — and possibly gaining — as a result?

Sidetrack students find a piece of machinery in an abandoned building on the Boston waterfront while exploring the city.

IDEAS | PETER THOMSON

The radical, forgotten experiment in educational integration that changed my life

In 1971, kids from Roxbury and Lincoln spent half the year attending school together in the city and the other half in the suburb. Fifty years later, I tracked down my fellow students to see how it shaped them — and whether something like it could work today.

This telemedicine session in 2022 connected a patient with a doctor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

IDEAS | KAREEM KING AND DOMINICK CONTRERAS

More broadband access, better health

IDEAS | JULIA HOTZ

Feeling sick? The lawyer will see you now.

IDEAS | BRIAN MCGUIRE

America broke George Clooney’s ER

democracy under siege

The Central Business District and the Chinatown in Singapore, which has an autocratic government and is known for its cleanliness and low rates of crime.

IDEAS | JASON MIKLIAN

Crazy rich autocracies: What are they doing better than democracies?

IDEAS | STEPHEN KINZER

As Turkey turns 100, its democratic future still has not arrived

IDEAS | MILES TAYLOR

The midterms and Trump’s return show why we need a third party

Andrea Campbell during her run for mayor.

IDEAS | DAVID SCHARFENBERG

Boston has never elected a Black mayor. A quiet experiment could change that.

IDEAS | TODD WASHBURN

We’re all to blame for the chaos in Congress

IDEAS | DAVID SCHARFENBERG

An opportunity for Democrats, hiding in plain sight

civil rights

Antiabortion demonstrators outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Fairview Heights, Ill., in 2022.

IDEAS | MARY ZIEGLER

Don’t rule out a national abortion ban in 2025

IDEAS | MARY ZIEGLER

After Roe, the right to travel could be the next to fall

IDEAS | JACKIE MANSKY

On your own this Valentine’s Day? Carly Rae Jepsen would say that’s just fine.

"Again and again as I read Ferrante, I had the experience of encountering passages that sparked my uneasy recognition."

IDEAS | NICHOLAS DAWIDOFF

What Elena Ferrante knows about the lingering pain of inequality

IDEAS | Katherine S. Newman & Elisabeth S. Jacobs

Low unemployment is the cheapest anti-poverty program

IDEAS | ABDALLAH FAYYAD

How the language of social justice is used to protect the status quo

climate crisis

The author's grandsons frolic among the native and non-native weeds in her Vermont meadow.

IDEAS | MARTHA LEB MOLNAR

Got weeds? Read this before you whack them.

IDEAS | Alex Trembath and Seaver Wang

For a greener world, cut red tape

IDEAS | GEORGE ROGERS

Lost winter: A season on thin ice is a bad time for poutine

education

A statue of a minuteman, the mascot of UMass Amherst, in front of the school's Old Chapel.

(Blake Nissen/ For The Boston Globe)

IDEAS | KARA MILLER

Public colleges should be truly public again

IDEAS | Régine Michelle Jean-Charles

Opponents of my kids’ math program have their calculus all wrong

IDEAS | STEPHEN ASMA

A way out of the campus free speech wars

A law enforcement officer placed an eviction notice in the doorway of an apartment in Springfield in 2020.

IDEAS | MILES HOWARD

Evictions are rising again. It’s time to get creative.

IDEAS | ALAN WIRZBICKI

What is the T for, anyway?

IDEAS | ABDALLAH FAYYAD

Wu’s stubborn optimism is exactly what this transit crisis needs

World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle pounded out a story in Anzio, Italy.

IDEAS | DAVID CHRISINGER

The WWII newspaper column that dared to illuminate death

IDEAS | STEPHEN KINZER

Henry Kissinger at 100: A contradictory legacy of peace and terror

IDEAS | ELIZABETH SVOBODA

When someone close to you has done very bad things

IDEAS | MILES HOWARD

Making too little to get affordable housing — and other problems with trying to stay in Boston

IDEAS | CLAIRE DUNNING

The unintended consequences of Boston’s nonprofit-led urban development

IDEAS | STARRE JULIA VARTAN

Consider the small landlord

technology

An aerial image taken by a Ukrainian drone in 2022.

IDEAS | SETH MOULTON

AI may pull the trigger in war, but it shouldn’t call the shots

IDEAS | NATHAN DUNNE

I want AI to tell me how the story ends

IDEAS | EVAN SELINGER

We don’t want chatbots to come off as people

IDEAS | JOHN SUMMERS

What my autistic son’s cold cheeseburgers taught me about bureaucracy

IDEAS | TOM JOUDREY

The beauty of ugliness

IDEAS | CLARA YIM BOLDUC

My stepfather was dying. Why wouldn’t his doctors just say so?

more special projects

IDEAS | JOAN VENNOCHI

How the MBTA went off the rails

Nearly everything about Boston has changed in the past few decades, yet the T has the same big problem — a failure to prioritize the rider experience above all.

IDEAS | DAVID SCHARFENBERG

Boston was once a wildly ambitious city. It’s time to go big again.

The pandemic is still shattering expectations of what workdays look like. In this special issue of Ideas, we explore which of these changes will stick — and how they’ll affect the quality of our lives.

Editing the Constitution

The pandemic is still shattering expectations of what workdays look like. In this special issue of Ideas, we explore which of these changes will stick — and how they’ll affect the quality of our lives.

The Future of Work

The pandemic is still shattering expectations of what workdays look like. In this special issue of Ideas, we explore which of these changes will stick — and how they’ll affect the quality of our lives.

The Future of Food

What we eat, where it comes from, and how we get it are being reimagined like never before.

Massachusetts Works

We turn the typical model of journalism on its head — instead of focusing on what’s broken, we’re taking a look at what Massachusetts gets right.