They called Abraham Bredius “The Pope”, a nickname that poked fun at his self-importance while acknowledging his authority. Bredius was the world’s leading scholar of Dutch painters and, particularly, of the mysterious Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. When Bredius was...
My new book, "How To Make The World Add Up", is published today in the UK and on 2 February in US / Canada as "The Data Detective". Will this year be 1954 all over again? Forgive me, I have become obsessed with 1954, not because it offers another example of a pandemic...
We have a technology problem. By that, I mean that we currently lack the technology to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. We don’t have a cheap, easy, self-administered test. We lack effective medicines. Above all, we...
You can’t say that nobody saw it coming. For years, people had warned that New Orleans was vulnerable. The Houston Chronicle reported that 250,000 people would be stranded if a major hurricane struck, with the low-lying city left 20ft underwater. New Orleans’s...
There may be times and places where it’s a good idea to talk back to a military officer — but Germany in 1906 wasn’t one of them. So the young corporal didn’t. The corporal — let’s call him Muller — had been leading his squad of four privates down Sylterstrasse in...
Torrey Canyon was one of the biggest and best ships in the world - nevertheless its captain and crew needlessly steered it towards a deadly reef known as The Seven Stones. This risky manoeuvre seems like utter madness, but the thinking behind it is something we...
“I used to play poker a ton and then I quit. It’s too time consuming and toooo boring.” There’s something boyish about the way Steve Levitt drags out the word. But then his inner economist reasserts itself: “What you come to realise about poker over time is that the...
The Anthologist doesn’t serve cashew nuts, so I order a bowl of smoked almonds instead. When they arrive, caramelised and brown as barbecue sauce, I ask for them to be put right in front of Richard Thaler. He protests that the waiter isn’t in on the joke. The readers...
The year 2011 was a big one for me. My son was born. We moved to a new city. I published a book. But something else happened that was in some ways more significant: on February 9 2011, I bought my first smartphone. It didn’t feel like a milestone in my life at the...