For Stephen Mihm's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
When COVID-19 first arrived last year, everyone’s go-to historical parallel was the 1918 influenza pandemic. Precisely because it was so fleeting, it’s hard to find evidence that it caused a sweeping reorientation of everyday life. In its wake, most people simply forgot what happened. ...
People learned the health advantages of open windows — and then closed them for air conditioners.
National crises can actually have positive effects on the young, building character as much as destroying it.
For most of America’s history, the idea that people over the age of 65 would voluntarily herd themselves into special communities built around their needs would have seemed absurd, even dystopian. Yet a largely voluntary movement toward segregating people by age has reached extreme ...
America’s embrace of retirement communities and nursing homes has led to a unique vulnerability.
As the coronavirus outbreak grows in scale and scope, a nasty side effect spreads: discrimination. Inside China, people from Wuhan have been treated like lepers. Outside, we're seeing numerous reports of verbal and physical abuse aimed at ethnic Chinese, and an aversion to Chinese ...
Long before Bezos's battle with the National Enquirer, a fight involving a scabrous newspaper led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision expanding freedom of the press.
Democrats' main target should be the Republican Party, not the president.
His administration gave gangsters 3,700 reasons to stop buying machine guns.
Jeff Bezos is stealing from a 19th-century playbook.
