The Hedgehog Review

The history of a controversial term.

Can we maintain a sense of self?

Why do people commit acts of cruelty?

Substack and the complicated state of the journalism industry.

Patriotism might be holding America back.

Does humanity need a break?

Have our written words lost their significance in modern times?

Whether a crisis of public health or public safety, is the best response increased surveillance?

Anne Applebaum's latest book is a "six-chapter journey of privilege and loss."

Exploring the relationship between a mother and her child through childhood psychoanalysis.

Ethically, how are we to evaluate the practice of getting stoned?

M.F.K Fisher on existing without many of the things we have always accepted as our due.

Race is an absurdity. Yet as a means of defining and separating people, it retains its power.

Online shaming, cancel culture. It's easy to turn someone into an instant monster.

Moral growth doesn't just mean looking to the future but reconciling past and present selfhood.

"The necessity of physical distancing creates the need to find new ways to be close to one another."

Vampire and zombie stories have dreamt themselves into us for specific reasons.

Where does our interest in true crime stories comes from?

How to confront our biases when it comes to plant intelligence.

Are outdated views holding us back from seeing the world in all its grey?

By embracing its counter-narrative, the Great American Novel can achieve its potential.

How do you weigh rehabilitation against the need for retribution, particularly when the crime is murder?

Paleo, vegan, raw, vegetarian - are the moral and ethical choices we make about food distracting us?

Why has liberalism lost its defenders?

Are you a good person? How do you know?

A moving reflection from an imprisoned men on the correctional facility he spent ten years in.

As he reviews Adam Kotsko's book "Neoliberalism’s Demons: On the Political Theology of Late Capital", Phil Christman finds that we are all neoliberalism’s little demons, making the choices the system requires while absolving it of all responsibility.

The case for collecting books.

Humans come together when we have a shared interest, a shared view or often a common enemy. If we started to embrace the things that make us different, perhaps we could see animals for what—and maybe who—they really are.

For decades, elite-whisperers like Yascha Mounk provided the missing connective tissue between natural rulers and the ruled. The rise in populism appears to be disrupting the 'natural order' of things.

Greg Jackson, writing in The Hedgehog Review, deconstructs the concept of the social imaginary.

Wilfred M. McClay, writing in The Hedgehog Review, argues that ageing is not a problem to be solved, but rather a meaning to be lived out.

Jonathan Malesic, writing in The Hedgehog Review, explains what happens when work and meaning part ways.

James Mumford, writing in The Hedgehog Review, considers the true meaning of subscribing to an ideology and the importance of being philosophically consistent.

Think of the name of a famous living scientist. Most people would probably come up with just a couple of names like Neil deGrasse Tyson or Bill Nye. Brendan P. Foht writing in The Hedgehog Review examines why there are so few scientists today that are as widely recognised as Stephen Hawking or Einstein.

Untimely meditations on transitioning.

American food critic Jonathan Gold, who passed away in July 2018, was considered by many an intellectual. Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft, writing in The Hedgehog Review, considers what it really means to be a true ‘intellectual’.

Masculinity is a moving target, shifting through the sand of time. Phil Christman, writing in The Hedgehog Review, undertakes defining what it means to be a man.

What would happen to our politics if everything were possible? B.D. McClay, writing in The Hedgehog Review, laments how reality can limit what we imagine.

In an era when it pays to go against the liberal mainstream, Steve Lagerfeld, writing in The Hedgehog Review considers the meaning of contrarianism.

That Edvard Munch never met Friedrich Nietzsche is one of history’s great missed encounters. Although it would appear that they did meet—in spirit. Leann Davis Alspaugh, writing in The Hedgehog Review, sketches out the influence of the great German philosopher on the Symbolist painter.

Despite living with his family in Michigan, Phil Christman still struggles to define exactly what the Midwest is like. Writing in The Hedgehog Review, he tears down the problematic stereotypes surrounding the region and grapples with the true identity of the Midwest.

Is the term “curation” used too loosely nowadays? Do those who use it understand its meaning, or are they merely chasing the illusion of prestige, cultivation and finesse that the word is linked to? Wilfred M. McClay, writing in The Hedgehog Review, shares his observations about the pretentious and mystifying notion of “curation”.

Are you a cat person or a dog person? Perhaps you find yourself on the fence in this classic debate. If that’s the case, then Matthew Denton-Edmundson, writing in The Hedgehog Review, explains why you might very possibly be...a goat person.

We’re encouraged to dream big. We idolise the likes of Elon Musk launching their red Teslas into space with Bowie playing on the radio. But sometimes we must look back and take caution from the tales of those who dreamt big and then failed. J.N. Campbell, writing in The Hedgehog Review, reviews ‘A History of the Future: Prophets of Progress from H.G. Wells to Isaac Asimov', by Peter Bowler.

With 1899’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, did Joseph Conrad predict it all? Terrorism, multinational capitalism, technological disruption? Sunil Khilnani, writing in The Hedgehog Review, reviews Maya Jasanoff’s book “The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World”.

Monopoly and culture in the Digital Age.

In our neoliberal world, by “pursuing their dream”, each person becomes a little firm with assets, debts, and a credit score—a success or a failure. Jackson Lears, writing in The Hedgehog Review, examines how the supposedly apolitical free market has come to jeopardize liberal democracy.

Imagine there are no countries…

Should the monuments of history's darkest figures be pulled down?

Our criminal justice system is built on the idea that once they have served their time, prisoners should be able to return to civil society. We accept that people deserve a second chance, but what if their second chance is a Ph.D at Harvard? Lisa Lorish looks at the case of Michelle Jones, a murderer who became a historian.

Populism here, populism there. The word is used to describe political firebrands of every hue, but does it stand for anything more than a rebellion against the status quo? Wilfred M. McClay contemplates the meaning of a term that can just as easily describe Occupy Wall Street activists as Tea Party enthusiasts.

Media coverage of terror events is often caught between the need to document and the risk of glamorising tragedy. Marta Zarzycka looks at how the photography of terrorism can so easily be misrepresented and exploited.

Corporations are coming to our rescue. At work, we can now feel at home and be social, we can feel safe and we can share in a common culture. James Poulos reflects on how the power of the corporation belies the failings of our traditional institutions.

Easily disparaged and seen as the lowest of the lows, housework is often confined to the shadows. It is work we would always rather someone else do. But Mary Townsend considers the intrinsic value of domesticity and the underappreciated mental skill required to perform effective housework.

You enjoy yourself, pushing beyond your inhibitions. But the sobriety of the next day punishes you. So is the hangover a spiritual or biological experience?

Born over two centuries ago, Thoreau's legacy still inspires awe.

There are billionaire orphans and moody detectives, but how many of your heroes were historians?

Confessions can be psychologically healing but they are also very healing and for that reason, extremely fun to watch. A look at the confession as genre.

Any life-long reader will be familiar with the joy of holding and revisiting a cherished tome.

If libraries are dying, do they deserve saving?

When did we accept that superheroes could be villains too?

Can you build a geopolitical empire out of business ethics?

When their bodies are frail, can love sustain the ones we care for?

God might be dead, the influence of religion subliminal, but guilt nonetheless persists—why?

I think I’m much more humble than you would understand. This was actually said by Donald Trump in response to a comment that he wasn’t known to be a humble man. In an age of twitter wars and alternative facts, Leif Weatherby, writing in the Hedgehog Review, wonders if there is any space left for irony. ​

Mark Edmundson writing in The Hedgehog Review meditates on whether the body exists if we do not have souls, and the related questions of the apparently dichotomous desires of the body and the soul. Are the desires of the body antagonistic to the “higher” desires of the soul? Or are they actually just one?

Unemployment numbers continue to rise across the world making the need for a solution more and more urgent. Carrie M Lane writing in The Hedgehog Review wonders whether the solution may not be in propping up the ailing traditional job but, instead, in adopting more self-assembled careers.

One of the reasons many people voted for Donald Trump is because of his claims of being a successful businessman. We revisit an article by Lisa Ann Cockrel and Micah Lott from The Hedgehog Review, published after Trump’s nomination as the Republican party candidate. Even without going into the veracity of his claims, Cockrel and Lott ask the question “does being a successful businessman qualify you to be president?”

Both sides of the political spectrum exist in vengeful bubbles intent on silencing their opponents. What is the root of this rising illiberalism? B.A. Brown, writing for the Hedgehog Review suggests that the death of religion and reason have contributed to an intellectual climate condemned to intolerance.

Was the social transformation that took place in the 1960s really that radical?

Where medieval manuscripts and illustrations find him towering and glowering, seething with hot, rancid breath and countless animal fangs, the go-to depiction of the Devil, humankind’s ancient enemy, is today often of a being polished though flawed, and a little tragic, more cordial than hypnotically tempting character. Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig says that that’s a great shame. ​

Can you measure wonder? In an academic world dominated by data and prediction models, the humanities appear to be in crisis.

Is hypocrisy a moral vice? Does unmasking it necessarily make the world a better place? ​

A review of Nobel-prize winning Orhan Pamuk thoughts on the elusive art of fiction.

Our lives online are becoming eternal. Is there no room for mistakes anymore?

Self-help books are to be found aplenty and they have also attracted immense criticism – especially that they encourage self-absorption or a withdrawal from civic engagement. But Joseph E Davis writing in The Hedgehog Review argues in favour of self help literature, telling us that they help people respond to a real felt need and navigate real problems. And not just that, even the most crassly self-centered books advocate doing something for others.