Showing results for "On Ruins" in Politics & Social Sciences

Matsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the world - and a weed that grows in human-disturbed forests across the northern hemisphere. Through its ability to nurture trees, matsutake helps forests to grow in daunting places. It is also an edible delicacy in Japan, where it sometimes commands astronomical prices. In all its contradictions, matsutake offers insights into areas far beyond just mushrooms and addresses a crucial question: what manages to live in the ruins we have made?

"On the Ground Where ‘Ruins Have Been Ruined’" is from the April 04, 2016 World section of The New York Times. It was written by Bryan Denton and narrated by Kristi Burns.

When we think of philosophy that can guide us in our everyday lives, we are more likely to think of Ancient Greece or Rome than we are 20th-century Mexico. But Mexican philosophy, which came into focus in the last century, following the Mexican Revolution, is a rich and wide-ranging tradition with much to offer readers today. Emerging in defiance of the Western philosophy bound up with colonial power—first brought to Mexico with the Augustinians in the 16th century, and, like so much else, imposed on Mexicans for centuries after that—it boasts a range of powerful ideas and advice.