I received a grant from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation at the early stages of what became an eight-year-long inquiry into the causes of mass violence against civilians, in particular…

…true right up to the coming of digital media. Digital media allowed these illiberal groups that had been hanging on by their fingernails to attract larger audiences. And by the…

…conflict and genocide. Mass killing involves not a mass of individuals boiling with hate or fear, but massive organization and planning. Individual hatreds make exceptions for friends and neighbors, and…

…1990s and today is the rise of social media.  The media environment in general, regardless of whether it’s social media or more traditional media, is pretty important to what’s going…

…a fact.  What role do you think that social media plays in all this? My instinct is that social media has to be fueling some of this anxiety and some…

…I discovered a handful of blue folders, which stopped me in my tracks. The papers inside—a confidential communist government investigation of “Sites of Mass Executions” during 1941-1945—mentioned repeatedly a largely…

…and ordinary? Do digital communication and social media, often rife with falsehood and fearmongering, distort objective reality and promote political violence? Can objectivity, truth-telling, and rational thought be reintroduced to…

…to end the era of mass incarceration in our state. That’s work left to be done. I’m very impatient with where we are right now. In the first year of…

…Boulder, Colorado, and Atlanta returned mass shootings to the front pages of newspapers around the country. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Greg Berman: What is your…

…think that Putnam emphasizes social relationships and social capital, which is really important. We would also say that an important part of social connection is actually being involved in collaborative…