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July 4, 2025

How Canadian nationalism is evolving with the times — and will continue to do so

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Eric Wilkinson, Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy, University of British Columbia

Tariffs imposed on Canada by the United States have fuelled a surge in nationalist sentiment that played a significant role in the outcome of April’s federal election.

Mark Carney’s new Liberal government has signalled an interest in pursuing nation-building projects that hearken back to an earlier period in Canadian history.

Economic, cultural and social policy in Canada has often served the purpose of building national unity to facilitate cohesion and collective action. But some commentators have cautioned Canadians to dampen their reinvigorated sense of pride in their nation.

Those on the right view Canadian nationalism as an obstacle to neo-liberal economic policies while the left perceives it as irredeemably flawed.

For people on the right, free trade and globalization are thought to produce the best economic outcomes, and nationalism obstructs those outcomes. But those on the progressive left argue that Canada was founded on racist policies and settler colonialism, so nationalism should be rejected because of this original sin.

What is a nation?

Both perspectives — and the public discussion of Canada’s national identity more generally — remain mired in confusion over the nature of nations. As a political philosopher, I have worked to clear up this confusion by determining what nations are and how they evolve.

In the 19th century, French scholar Ernest Renan outlined a definition of nation that has yet to be improved upon. For Renan, a nation consists of two things: the daily commitment of a people to continue to live and work together and a collective memory of a shared past together.

In contemporary times, Irish social scientist Benedict Anderson described nations as “imagined communities,” since the character of the nation is determined by the limits of the collective imagination of its citizens.

These are subjective definitions of nations because they define national communities in terms of the identification of their members with the community.

There are other, more common objective definitions of a nation involving identity, including shared ethnicity, religion or culture. But these definitions have long been criticized since many national identities transcend ethnicity, religion, culture or any other identity markers.

Nations vs. states

A national community is distinct from a state. The state constitutes the formal political institutions of a society, while the nation is the community of people within that society who view each other as compatriots. This is why the phrase “the people” is often used as a synonym for the national community.

While some nations are stateless, in other cases, multiple nations co-exist within a single state.

In Canada, there is the Québécois nation and many Indigenous nations within the Canadian nation. Although they are distinct, states and their governments will often build national identities around themselves to enable cohesion and collective action. Canada’s national identity was systematically shaped by successive governments — from Confederation onward — to build the society that Canadians live in today.

The character of a particular nation is not fixed.

The beliefs, practices and culture of the people who choose to live and work together can be shaped into anything they collectively decide on. A nation can adopt new values, redefine its membership or have one of its definitive characteristics fade from prominence.

Accordingly, there is no reason to think that moral failings of a national community’s past must compromise it forever. A nation can, and sometimes does, recognize its past failures and become something better.

Patriotism vs. nationalism

A distinction is sometimes drawn between “patriotism” and “nationalism,” with the most famous being made by English social critic and novelist George Orwell.

For Orwell, patriotism is devotion to a particular way of life without the desire to force it on other people, while nationalism denotes an impulse to seek power for one’s nation. Patriotism, then, is a benign, ethical form of partiality to one’s nation.

Other thinkers have sought to explain how national identities and communities can be cultivated in an ethical way, described by Israeli philosopher Yael Tamir as “liberal nationalism.”

The liberal nationalist, according to Tamir, seeks to construct a national identity that adopts the correct ethical values. They hope to harness the energy of nationalism to build a nation committed to liberty, inclusivity and progress.

In 1867, George-Étienne Cartier described the Canadian identity that he and the other Fathers of Confederation sought to create as a “political nationality.” He viewed Canadian identity as being defined by shared principles rather than language or ethnicity.

More than 150 years later, political theorist Michael Ignatieff made a similar distinction between ethnic and civic nationalism. In an ethnic nation, citizens identify with each other because they belong to the same ethnic, religious or cultural community. Meanwhile, in a civic nation, the people unite behind certain civic principles, like a commitment to democracy.

Cartier’s concept of a political nationality was crucial to making sense of the political experiment that was Confederation. Having mostly abandoned their efforts to assimilate the French-Canadians, the British settlers in North America would now join with them to build a new national identity instead.

Reshaping Canadian identity

In his recent book, historian Raymond Blake explains how Canada’s post-Second World War prime ministers, through their speeches and public statements, reshaped Canada’s national identity.

Up through Louis St-Laurent, various prime ministers would refer to the “deux nations” origin of Canada as inspirational. British and French settlers had come together despite their differences to build a new society together, they pointed out.

As time went on, it became clear this definition of Canada’s national identity wasn’t nearly inclusive enough, making no mention of Indigenous Peoples.

The multicultural character of Canadian society was increasingly acknowledged by the government and Canadians at large until it was central to Canada’s identity. Canada’s national narrative has been reframed in recent years to recognize Indigenous Peoples as one of the three founding pillars of Canadian society. This evolution exemplifies exactly the change citizens should expect in a national community.

This transformation in Canadian national identity shows that national communities can change over time — including, perhaps, in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats against Canada.

In the end, Canadians decide what sort of nation they want to inhabit. Canada’s political nationality has proven more resilient than even some of its founders might have anticipated, but not for lack of effort. There will always remain the work of building a better nation — and it’s work worth doing.

Eric Wilkinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How Canadian nationalism is evolving with the times — and will continue to do so – https://theconversation.com/how-canadian-nationalism-is-evolving-with-the-times-and-will-continue-to-do-so-259352

July 4, 2025

Resurrecting John A. Macdonald statues ignores critical lessons about Canada’s history

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Eric Strikwerda, Associate Professor, History, Athabasca University

“We’re freeing John A.,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently announced, unveiling plans to return a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald to its place of prominence overlooking the south lawn of the Ontario legislature at Queen’s Park.

The statue’s return comes five years after activists, disgusted by the first Canadian prime minister’s racist policies, sprayed pink paint over the statue’s base.

Ford’s announcement was welcome news to the mostly conservative historians, editorialists and assorted pundits who have decried Macdonald’s “cancellation.”

Their objections have been part of passionate debates about whether racist and harmful figures from the past should be celebrated through statues, school and state institution names and public infrastructure projects.

For these conservatives, the issue is simple. Dismantling statues is dismantling Canada’s history.

On the other side of the debate are those who argue that Macdonald’s active and integral role in creating the aggressively assimilationist Gradual Civilization Act, the infamous Indian Residential Schools system, the Reserve and Pass Systems and the Indian Act were all meant to make Indigenous Peoples disappear.

Macdonald was no man to celebrate, they contend, and his statue is nothing more than a symbol of racism and Canada’s dark colonial past.

Flurries of commemoration

Both sides to the debate, of course, are correct in their assessments of Canada’s first prime minister. Like all historical figures from the past, Macdonald was a complex human being operating at a particular historical moment. And his actions had important historical implications for the way Canada developed.

Was Macdonald, as proponents of his statue suggest, a visionary nation-builder? Maybe. But he was also a racist colonizer who used his position and his power to advance clearly racist goals in the most awful ways.

And yet, the debate misses a deeper and much more interesting set of questions about how we understand Canadian history, how we describe Canada’s past and ultimately how Canadians tell stories about themselves to each other.

It’s important to recognize from where and in what historical contexts Canada’s statues, commemorations and public infrastructure names come. Statues of figures like Macdonald, as well as the naming of public buildings, bridges and roads in his honour, appeared principally at two separate times.

The first came in the late 19th century, mostly commemorating Macdonald’s death in 1891. But statues were being erected during this period amid rising nationalism. They signalled a celebration of Canada’s membership in the British Empire, then at the zenith of its power and influence.

The second flurry of Macdonald commemoration was in the mid-1960s, another moment of heightened nationalism and Canadian pride. It coincided with Canada’s centenary in 1967, the Montréal Expo that same year, a new Canadian flag and a newfound confidence in the world through its active participation in international peacekeeping efforts.

Canada was also at that time grappling with a deeply dissatisfied Québec and its place in Confederation, a state of affairs that eventually resulted in a divisive sovereignty referendum in 1980 that threatened the very fabric of Canada.

Respecting the dissent

But just as Canadians need to understand the historical contexts in which citizens of the past have celebrated people like Macdonald, so too do they need to grasp the historical contexts in which Canadians past and present have questioned his legacy.

In 2013, the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States sparked critical re-evaluations of statues of Civil War-era figures from the American South and the continued use in some southern states of the highly offensive Confederate flag, along with many other symbols of racism, division and hatred.

The release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) final report a decade ago similarly forced Canadians to confront some the darkest chapters of the country’s past.

The point often missed here is that historical markers — like the TRC Commission and the Black Lives Matter movement — themselves become artefacts of the ongoing project involving how people tell stories about themselves to themselves, what those stories say about them in the present and how they want to define themselves in the future.

A more fulsome engagement with history demands Canadians refrain from conflating the story of John A. Macdonald, the statue, with the story of John A. Macdonald, the man, any more than we’d conflate a drawing of an apple with the one on our counter.

A true examination of Macdonald

It’s not a question of who Macdonald was or wasn’t. Instead, it’s about the historical context in which the commemorations of him were installed. But it’s also part of the continuing story of how we see ourselves today.

Claims that dismantling public statues and renaming roads and schools somehow erases Canadian history are ridiculous and profoundly misunderstand how history works.

As Canada Day approaches, it’s important to remember that Macdonald’s story and legacy live on exactly where they should — in the pages of history books, museums and classrooms, where his life and times can be examined, interpreted and debated with the kind of depth and nuance that Canadian history deserves.

Eric Strikwerda does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Resurrecting John A. Macdonald statues ignores critical lessons about Canada’s history – https://theconversation.com/resurrecting-john-a-macdonald-statues-ignores-critical-lessons-about-canadas-history-259351

July 4, 2025

Parents who oppose sex education in schools often don’t discuss it at home

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Robin Pickering, Professor and Chair, Public Health, Gonzaga University

Lawmakers and school boards across the country have established policies that limit what schools can teach about gender, sexuality and reproductive health. Alexmia/iStock via Getty Images

Public battles over what schools can teach about sex, identity and relationships, often framed around “parental rights,” have become more intense in recent years.

Behind the loud debate lies a quiet contradiction. Many parents who say sex education should be taught only at home don’t actually provide it there, either.

As a scholar of sex education, I found that parents strongly opposed to comprehensive sex education in schools were the least likely to discuss health-promoting concepts such as consent, contraception, gender identity and healthy relationships. I discuss similar themes in my book, “A Modern Approach to the Birds and the Bees.”

Comprehensive sex education delays sexual activity, increases contraceptive use and reduces teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection rates. It has a complex history, but has long received bipartisan support.

In recent years, however, old debates over sex education and funding have taken a sharper turn.

In June 2025, the Trump administration ordered California to remove gender-identity materials from sex education lessons or risk losing over US$12 million in federal funding.

This directive is part of a broader shift. Since the early 1980s, abstinence-focused policy has existed at the federal level under Reagan with the Adolescent Family Life Act. In recent years, however, a wave of state-level legislation, often driven by conservative advocacy groups, has tried to limit what schools can teach about sexuality.

The parents’ rights movement

In 2023, Florida expanded its Parental Rights in Education, also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, to extend limits on discussing sexual orientation and gender identity to all K–12 grades. The law states that sex can be defined only as strictly binary, limits discussions of gender and sexuality, imposes rules on pronoun use and increases school board authority over curricula.

Other states, including Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Kentucky, have imposed similar restrictions.

A word cloud illustration with phrases such as sex education, birth control, teen pregnancy and social stigma. — Federal, state and local efforts have sought to control or limit sex education in schools.
tupungato/iStock via Getty Images

Local school boards in states such as Florida, Idaho, Tennessee and Utah have removed textbooks, cut health courses and banned books with LGBTQ+ themes. Conservative, local school boards are reshaping sex education nationwide even though the vast majority of Americans oppose efforts to restrict books in public schools and are confident in public schools’ selection of books.

Who’s having the talk?

A Black couple sit on a couch, speaking with a young boy. — A national survey on parental attitudes and beliefs about school-based sex education revealed that some families do not practice what they preach.
diane39/iStock via Getty Images

As laws limit teaching about sex, gender and identity, I wanted to explore whether parents are stepping in to fill the gaps.

About 10% of the surveyed parents said sex education should happen only at home. Those parents were also most likely to say they “almost never” or “never” discussed sex, sexuality and romance with their children.

By contrast, parents who supported comprehensive, school-based sex ed were significantly more likely to discuss subjects including consent, contraception, identity and healthy relationships at home.

The survey also found that parents who opposed comprehensive sex education were more likely to believe commonly circulated misinformation, such as the idea that talking about sex encourages early sexual activity and that condoms are not effective.

These preliminary findings align with a robust body of peer-reviewed literature suggesting that parents who are more resistant to school-based sex ed are also less likely and less equipped to have open, informed conversations at home.

These findings point to a gap between expert recommendations and what parents do.

At the federal level, the Trump administration slashed funding for comprehensive sex education. The administration also expanded funding for abstinence-only programs, despite evidence of their ineffectiveness.

Risks rise without education

A girl covers the eyes of a boy while she looks at a computer screen in a darkened room. — Teenagers learn about sex online, and pornography is among the top sources of information.
redhumv?E+ via Getty Images

A 2022 report from Common Sense Media found that nearly half of teens report learning about sex online, with pornography among the top sources.

Research indicates that even when schools and families avoid topics related to sexuality, young people still encounter sexual content. Yet, advocacy groups such as Moms for Liberty support the removal of what it considers “age-inappropriate” or “sexually explicit” materials from classrooms and school libraries.

The absence of structured, accurate education likely has implications for public health. According to the CDC, individuals ages 15 to 24 account for nearly half of all new sexually transmitted infections in the U.S.

Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas have some of the highest teen birth and sexually transmitted infection rates. Yet, these states are also among those with the most restrictive sex education policies and poorest sex ed ratings.

These communities also face higher poverty, limited health care access and lower educational attainment. The combination deepens health disparities.

LGBTQ+ youth are especially vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections and related health challenges. This vulnerability is compounded in regions with limited access to inclusive education.

A 2023 CDC report found that students who receive inclusive sex education feel more connected to school and experience lower rates of depression and bullying. These benefits are especially critical for LGBTQ+ youth.

As debates over sex education continue, I believe it’s important for policymakers, school boards and communities to weigh parental input and public health data.

I am the author of the book, “A Modern Approach to the Birds and the Bees” which I mentioned in the article and do benefit from its sale.

– ref. Parents who oppose sex education in schools often don’t discuss it at home – https://theconversation.com/parents-who-oppose-sex-education-in-schools-often-dont-discuss-it-at-home-258892

July 4, 2025

Astronomers have discovered another puzzling interstellar object − this third one is big, bright and fast

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Darryl Z. Seligman, Assistant Professor, Michigan State University

The Haleakala Observatory, left, houses one telescope for the ATLAS system. That system first spotted the object 3I/ATLAS, which isn’t visible in this image. AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson

Astronomers manning an asteroid warning system caught a glimpse of a large, bright object zipping through the solar system late on July 1, 2025. The object’s potentially interstellar origins excited scientists across the globe, and the next morning, the European Space Agency confirmed that this object, first named A11pl3Z and then designated 3I/ATLAS, is the third ever found from outside our solar system.

Current measurements estimate that 3I/ATLAS is about 12 miles (20 kilometers) wide, and while its path won’t take it close to Earth, it could hold clues about the nature of a previous interstellar object and about planet formation in solar systems beyond ours.

On July 2 at 3 p.m. EDT, Mary Magnuson, an associate science editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke to Darryl Z. Seligman, an astrophysicist at Michigan State University who has been studying 3I/ATLAS since its discovery.

What makes 3I/ATLAS different from its predecessors?

We have discovered two interstellar objects so far, ’Oumuamua and Comet 2I/Borisov. ’Oumuamua had no dust tail and a significant nongravitational acceleration, which led to a wide variety of hypotheses regarding its origin. 2I/Borisov was very clearly a comet, though it has a somewhat unique composition compared to comets in our solar system.

All of our preparation for the next interstellar object was preparing for something that looked like a ’Oumuamua, or something that looked like Borisov. And this thing doesn’t look like either of them, which is crazy and exciting.

This object is shockingly bright, and it’s very far away from the Earth. It is significantly bigger than both of the interstellar objects we’ve seen – it is orders of magnitude larger than ’Oumuamua.

For some context, ’Oumuamua was discovered when it was very close to the Earth, but this new object is so large and bright that our telescopes can see it, even though it is still much farther away. This means observatories and telescopes will be able to observe it for much longer than we could for the two previous objects.

It’s huge and it’s much farther away, but it is also much faster.

When I went to bed last night, I saw an alert about this object, but nobody knew what was going on yet. I have a few collaborators who figure out the orbits of things in the solar system, and I expected to wake up to them saying something like “yeah, this isn’t actually interstellar.” Because a lot of times you think you may have found something interesting, but as more data comes in, it becomes less interesting.

Then, when I woke up at 1 a.m., my colleagues who are experts on orbits were saying things like “no, this is definitely interstellar. This is for real.”

How can astronomers tell if something is an interstellar object?

The eccentricity of the object’s orbit is how you know that it’s interstellar. The eccentricity refers to how noncircular an orbit is. So an eccentricity of zero is a pure circle, and as the eccentricity increases, it becomes what’s known as an ellipse – a stretched out circle.

An animation showing a line with a dot labeled ''Oumuamua' that intersects the oval-shaped ellipses showing the orbits of Earth, Mars and other planets. — A hyperbolic orbit isn’t a closed loop, as this rendering of ‘Oumuamua’s trajectory shows. All the planets have oval-shaped elliptical orbits, which close in a loop. The interstellar object instead passes through but doesn’t come back around.
Tomruen/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

And then once you get past an eccentricity of one, you go from an ellipse to a hyperbolic orbit, and that is unbound. So while an elliptical orbit is stretched out, it still orbits and comes back around. An object with a hyperbolic orbit comes through and it leaves, but it never comes back. That type of orbit tells you that it didn’t come from this solar system.

When researchers are collecting data, they’re getting points of light on the sky, and they don’t know how far away they are. It’s not like they see them and can just tell, “oh, that’s eccentric.” What they’re seeing is how far away the object is compared with other stars in the background, what its position is and how fast it’s moving. And then from that data, they try to fit the orbit.

This object is moving fast for how far away it is, and that’s what’s telling us that it could be hyperbolic. If something is moving fast enough, it’ll escape from the solar system. So a hyperbolic, unbound object inherently has to be moving faster.

This is a real-time process. My collaborators have preexisting software, which will, every night, get new observations of all the small bodies and objects in the solar system. It will figure out and update what the orbits are in real time. We’re getting data points, and with more data we can refine which orbit fits the points best.

What can scientists learn from an interstellar object?

Objects like this are pristine, primordial remnants from the planet formation process in other planetary systems. The small bodies in our solar system have taught us quite a lot about how the planets in the solar system formed and evolved. This could be a new window into understanding planet formation throughout the galaxy.

As we’re looking through the incoming data, we’re trying to figure out whether it’s a comet. In the next couple of weeks, there will likely be way more information available to say if it has a cometary tail like Borisov, or if it has an acceleration that’s not due to a gravitational pull, like ’Oumuamua.

If it is a comet, researchers really want to figure out whether it’s icy. If it contains ices, that tells you a ton about it. The chemistry of these small bodies is the most important aspect when it comes to understanding planet formation, because the chemical composition tells you about the conditions the object’s solar system was in when the object formed.

For example, if the object has a lot of ices in it, you would know that wherever it came from, it didn’t spend much time near a star, because those ices would have melted. If it has a lot of ice in it, that could tell you that it formed really far away from a star and then got ejected by something massive, such as a planet the size of Jupiter or Neptune.

Fundamentally, this object could tell astronomers more about a population of objects that we don’t fully understand, or about the conditions in another solar system.

We’ve had a couple of hours to get some preliminary observations. I suspect that practically every telescope is going to be looking at this object for the next couple of nights, so we’ll get much more information about it very soon.

Darryl Z. Seligman is supported by an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship under award AST-2303553. This research award is partially funded by a generous gift of Charles Simonyi to the NSF Division of Astronomical Sciences. The award is made in recognition of significant contributions to Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time.

– ref. Astronomers have discovered another puzzling interstellar object − this third one is big, bright and fast – https://theconversation.com/astronomers-have-discovered-another-puzzling-interstellar-object-this-third-one-is-big-bright-and-fast-260391

July 4, 2025

War, politics and religion shape wildlife evolution in cities

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Elizabeth Carlen, Living Earth Collaborative Postdoctoral Fellow, Washington University in St. Louis

A Buddhist monk in Hong Kong releases fish and chants prayers during a ceremony to free the spirits of tsunami victims. Samantha Sin/AFP via Getty Images

People often consider evolution to be a process that occurs in nature in the background of human society. But evolution is not separate from human beings. In fact, human cultural practices can influence evolution in wildlife. This influence is highly pronounced in cities, where people drastically alter landscapes to meet their own needs.

Human actions can affect wildlife evolution in a number of ways. If people fragment habitat, separated wildlife populations can evolve to be more and more different from each other. If people change certain local conditions, it can pressure organisms in new ways that mean different genes are favored by natural selection and passed on to offspring – another form of evolution that can be driven by what people do.

In a recent review, evolutionary biologists Marta Szulkin, Colin Garroway and I, in collaboration with scientists spread across five continents, explored how cultural processes – including religion, politics and war – shape urban evolution. We reviewed dozens of empirical studies about urban wildlife around the globe. Our work highlights which human cultural practices have and continue to shape the evolutionary trajectory of wild animals and plants.

Religious practices

If you’ve traveled internationally, you may have noticed the menu at any one McDonald’s restaurant is shaped by the local culture of its location. In the United Arab Emirates, McDonald’s serves an entirely halal menu. Vegetarian items are common and no beef is served in Indian McDonald’s. And in the United States, McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish is especially popular during Lent when observant Catholics don’t consume meat on Fridays.

Similarly, ecosystems of cities are shaped by local cultural practices. Because all wildlife are connected to the environment, cultural practices that alter the landscape shape the evolution of urban organisms.

Yellow and black salamander facing the camera — Populations of fire salamanders have different genes depending on which side of city walls in Oviedo, Spain, they live on.
Patrice Skrzynski via Getty Images

For example, in Oviedo, Spain, people constructed walls around religious buildings between the 12th and 16th centuries. This division of the city led to different populations of fire salamanders inside and outside the walls. Because salamanders can’t scale these walls, those on opposite sides became isolated from each other and unable to pass genes back and forth. In a process that scientists call genetic drift, over time salamanders on the two sides became genetically distinct − evidence of the two populations evolving independently.

Imagine dumping out a handful of M&Ms. Just by chance, some colors might be overrepresented and others might be missing. In the same way, genes that are overrepresented on one side of the wall can be in low numbers or missing on the other side. That’s genetic drift.

Introducing non-native wildlife is another way people can alter urban ecosystems and evolutionary processes. For example, prayer animal release is a practice that started in the fifth or sixth century in some sects of Buddhism. Practitioners who strive to cause no harm to any living creature release captive animals, which benefits the animal and is meant to improve the karma of the person who released it.

However, these animals are often captured from the wild or come from the pet trade, thereby introducing non-native wildlife into the urban ecosystem. Non-natives may compete with local species and contribute to the local extinction of native wildlife. Capturing animals nearby has downsides, too. It can diminish local populations, since many die traveling to the release ceremony. The genetic diversity of these local populations in turn decreases, reducing the population’s ability to survive.

Black and white photo showing a cart filled with dead birds and a group of people marching alongside — More than a thousand sparrows killed by peasants in 1958 are displayed on a cart near Beijing, China.
Sovphoto/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Influence of politics

Politically motivated campaigns have shaped wildlife in various ways.

Starting in 1958, for instance, the Chinese Communist Party led a movement to eliminate four species that were considered pests: rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows. While the first three are commonly considered pests around the world, sparrows made the list because they were “public animals of capitalism” due to their fondness for grain. The extermination campaign ended up decimating the sparrow population and damaging the entire ecosystem. With sparrows no longer hunting and eating insects, crop pests such as locusts thrived, leading to crop destruction and famine.

In the United States, racial politics may be shaping evolutionary processes in wildlife.
For instance, American highways traverse cities according to political agendas and have often dismantled poor neighborhoods of color to make way for multilane thoroughfares. These highways can change how animals are able to disperse and commingle. For example, they prevent bobcats and coyotes from traveling throughout Los Angeles, leading to similar patterns of population differentiation as seen in fire salamanders in Spain.

Wildlife during and after war

Human religious and political agendas often lead to armed conflict. Wars are known to dramatically alter the environment, as seen in current conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.

A large brown bird with white wing spots perching on a tree trunk — The Russia-Ukraine war affected migration of greater spotted eagles.
Nimit Virdi via Getty Images

While documenting evolutionary changes to urban wildlife is secondary to keeping people safe during wartime, a handful of studies on wildlife have come out of active war zones. For example, the current Russia-Ukraine war affected the migration of greater spotted eagles. They made large diversions around the active war zone, arriving later than usual at their breeding grounds. The longer route increased the energy the eagles used during migration and likely influenced their fitness during breeding.

Wars limit access to resources for people living in active war zones. The lack of energy to heat homes in Ukraine during the winter has led urban residents to harvest wood from nearby forests. This harvesting will have long-term consequences on forest dynamics, likely altering future evolutionary potential.

A similar example is famine that occurred during the Democratic Republic of Congo’s civil wars (1996-1997, 1998-2003) and led to an increase in bushmeat consumption. This wildlife hunting is known to reduce primate population sizes, making them more susceptible to local extinction.

Even after war, landscapes experience consequences.

For example, the demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea is a 160-mile (250-kilometer) barrier, established in 1953, separating the two countries. Heavily fortified with razor wire and landmines, the demilitarized zone has become a de facto nature sanctuary supporting thousands of species, including dozens of endangered species.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War led to the establishment of the European Green Belt, which runs along the same path as the Iron Curtain. This protected ecological network is over 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) long, allowing wildlife to move freely across 24 countries in Europe. Like the Korean DMZ, the European Green Belt allows for wildlife to move, breed and exchange genes, despite political boundaries. Politics has removed human influence from these spaces, allowing them to be a safe haven for wildlife.

While researchers have documented a number of examples of wildlife evolving in response to human history and cultural practices, there’s plenty more to uncover. Cultures differ around the world, meaning each city has its own set of variables that shape the evolutionary processes of wildlife. Understanding how these human cultural practices shape evolutionary patterns will allow people to better design cities that support both humans and the wildlife that call these places home.

Ideas for this article were developed as part of a NSF funded Research Coordination Network (DEB 1840663). Elizabeth Carlen was funded by the Living Earth Collaborative.

– ref. War, politics and religion shape wildlife evolution in cities – https://theconversation.com/war-politics-and-religion-shape-wildlife-evolution-in-cities-260184

July 4, 2025

Elon Musk says he may launch his own party: but US history tells us that’s not a recipe for success

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Nottingham Trent University

To paraphrase a very old joke, how do you make a small fortune in America? Start with a large fortune and fund a third political party. American political history is littered with the wrecks of challengers who thought they could break the two-party system and failed.

This makes Elon Musk’s tease that he may launch his own new political party as an act of defiance following his falling out with Donald Trump even more intriguing.

What do we mean by a two-party system though? Since the 1860s, the Democrats and Republicans have dominated the US political landscape, holding the presidency, Congress and the vast majority of elected positions. Attempts at third parties have usually floundered at the ballot box.

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Some have lasted only for a few electoral cycles, including the Progressive Party in the 1910s and the Citizens Party of the 1980s, while others like the Libertarian Party and Green Party have lasted decades and, in some cases, managed some electoral success at the local level.

But this is where an important distinction has to be made between third parties and third-party candidates. Because the US system is so personality-driven rather than party focused compared to Europe, quite often third parties have been built around a single person.

A good example is the previously mentioned Progressive Party. It was founded in 1912 by former president Theodore Roosevelt after he split from the Republicans. Without him it quickly faded away.

The Reform Party was created by billionaire Ross Perot in 1995 after he managed to get 18.9% of the vote in the 1992 presidential election. While it continued without him for some years, it was a shell of its former self. Other parties like the Socialist, Libertarian and Green parties have sprung from more organic movements and thus have been more successful at a local or state level.

When you look at recent polling though, it seems strange that the two parties continue to dominate. Public dissatisfaction with politics as usual seems at an all-time high. In a recent Pew Research poll when asked whether “I often wish there were more political parties to choose from” describes their views, 37% of respondents answered: “Very well” and 31% answered: “Somewhat well”.

In another poll, 25% of respondents said that neither of the two main parties represented their interests.

So if there is an appetite for some sort of change, why have so few challengers succeeded? The two main parties seem entrenched to the point where it resembles a cartel.

Odds stacked against third-party insurgency

The first and arguably most important reason is the electoral system. First past the post does not guarantee a two-party system (look at Britain, for instance). But political scientist Maurice Duverger argued that it does mean that the two main parties have a significant advantage. There are prizes for coming first and second, nothing for third place.

Equally, many of the big prizes in American politics such as the presidency and state governorships are indivisible and cannot be shared. So it has become received wisdom that voting for anyone other than Democrats or Republicans is a wasted vote.

In these cases, people either vote for what they perceive to be the lesser of two evils or stay at home, rather than voting for a candidate with no chance or that they may not support.

The other multi-billion dollar elephant in the room is money. The sheer cost of running for elections in recent years means that any third party is unlikely to be able to raise the funds to be truly competitive. At the last election, the Democrats and Republicans spent hundreds of millions of dollars (which isn’t even counting all of the super-PAC money spent on their behalf).

Whenever billionaires like Perot have attempted to self-fund a party, they have left themselves open to the accusation that it’s a vanity project, or lacks true mass appeal.

There is also the fact that to run successfully you must have media coverage. The media tends to focus almost exclusively on the two main parties. This creates a “chicken and egg” situation where you need success to help raise money and media coverage, but it’s difficult to be successful without first having money and media coverage.

The final reasons are that of the open primary and ideological flexibility of the main parties. Donald Trump briefly considered running as president for the Reform Party back in 2000. In 2016, the open primary system that both main parties use meant that he could impose himself on the Republican Party despite most of the party elite despising him.

Why bother starting your own party when you can run for one that already exists? It could now be argued that the Republicans have effectively become the Trump or Maga party, although whether this will survive his presidency is open to debate.

Money, money, money

Elon Musk has, for the moment, money to burn. Whether he’s willing to invest in the long term to turn this into more than a vanity project remains to be seen.

He also has charisma and a national platform to amplify his voice like few others. But, having been born outside America, he can’t run for president.

If he’s serious about electoral success, he’d have to find someone to run, and that would mean, effectively, they’d lead his party. Musk’s public persona suggests that he does not play well with others.

Founding a third party isn’t impossible, but unless there is a political earthquake it seems difficult to see how one could succeed.

Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Elon Musk says he may launch his own party: but US history tells us that’s not a recipe for success – https://theconversation.com/elon-musk-says-he-may-launch-his-own-party-but-us-history-tells-us-thats-not-a-recipe-for-success-260480

July 4, 2025

From glass and steel to rare earth metals, new materials have changed society throughout history

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Peter Mullner, Distinguished Professor in Materials Science and Engineering, Boise State University

Steel played a large role in the Industrial Revolution. Monty Rakusen/DigitalVision via Getty Images

Many modern devices – from cellphones and computers to electric vehicles and wind turbines – rely on strong magnets made from a type of minerals called rare earths. As the systems and infrastructure used in daily life have turned digital and the United States has moved toward renewable energy, accessing these minerals has become critical – and the markets for these elements have grown rapidly.

Modern society now uses rare earth magnets in everything from national defense, where magnet-based systems are integral to missile guidance and aircraft, to the clean energy transition, which depends on wind turbines and electric vehicles.

The rapid growth of the rare earth metal trade and its effects on society isn’t the only case study of its kind. Throughout history, materials have quietly shaped the trajectory of human civilization. They form the tools people use, the buildings they inhabit, the devices that mediate their relationships and the systems that structure economies. Newly discovered materials can set off ripple effects that shape industries, shift geopolitical balances and transform people’s daily habits.

Materials science is the study of the atomic structure, properties, processing and performance of materials. In many ways, materials science is a discipline of immense social consequence.

As a materials scientist, I’m interested in what can happen when new materials become available. Glass, steel and rare earth magnets are all examples of how innovation in materials science has driven technological change and, as a result, shaped global economies, politics and the environment.

A diagram showing red arrows, labeled 'politics in' 'society in' 'environment in' 'technology in' etc, leading to a box labeled 'innovation' with arrows pointing away from that box with the same labels but 'out' instead of 'in.' — How innovation shapes society: Pressures from societal and political interests (orange arrows) drive the creation of new materials and the technologies that such materials enable (center). The ripple effects resulting from people using these technologies change the entire fabric of society (blue arrows).
Peter Mullner

Glass lenses and the scientific revolution

In the early 13th century, after the sacking of Constantinople, some excellent Byzantine glassmakers left their homes to settle in Venice – at the time a powerful economic and political center. The local nobility welcomed the glassmakers’ beautiful wares. However, to prevent the glass furnaces from causing fires, the nobles exiled the glassmakers – under penalty of death – to the island of Murano.

Murano became a center for glass craftsmanship. In the 15th century, the glassmaker Angelo Barovier experimented with adding the ash from burned plants, which contained a chemical substance called potash, to the glass.

The potash reduced the melting temperature and made liquid glass more fluid. It also eliminated bubbles in the glass and improved optical clarity. This transparent glass was later used in magnifying lenses and spectacles.

Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press, completed in 1455, made reading more accessible to people across Europe. With it came a need for reading glasses, which grew popular among scholars, merchants and clergy – enough that spectacle-making became an established profession.

By the early 17th century, glass lenses evolved into compound optical devices. Galileo Galilei pointed a telescope toward celestial bodies, while Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovered microbial life with a microscope.

A large round, convex glass lens mounted on a metal stand, with a technician wearing scrubs looking at it. — The glass lens of the Vera Rubin Observatory, which surveys the night sky.
Large Synoptic Survey Telescope/Vera Rubin Observatory, CC BY

Lens-based instruments have been transformative. Telescopes have redefined long-standing cosmological views. Microscopes have opened entirely new fields in biology and medicine.

These changes marked the dawn of empirical science, where observation and measurement drove the creation of knowledge. Today, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory continue those early telescopes’ legacies of knowledge creation.

Steel and empires

In the late 18th and 19th centuries, the Industrial Revolution created demand for stronger, more reliable materials for machines, railroads, ships and infrastructure. The material that emerged was steel, which is strong, durable and cheap. Steel is a mixture of mostly iron, with small amounts of carbon and other elements added.

Countries with large-scale steel manufacturing once had outsized economic and political power and influence over geopolitical decisions. For example, the British Parliament intended to prevent the colonies from exporting finished steel with the iron act of 1750. They wanted the colonies’ raw iron as supply for their steel industry in England.

Benjamin Huntsman invented a smelting process using 3-foot tall ceramic vessels, called crucibles, in 18th-century Sheffield. Huntsman’s crucible process produced higher-quality steel for tools and weapons.

One hundred years later, Henry Bessemer developed the oxygen-blowing steelmaking process, which drastically increased production speed and lowered costs. In the United States, figures such as Andrew Carnegie created a vast industry based on Bessemer’s process.

The widespread availability of steel transformed how societies built, traveled and defended themselves. Skyscrapers and transit systems made of steel allowed cities to grow, steel-built battleships and tanks empowered militaries, and cars containing steel became staples in consumer life.

Bright hot metal pouring out of a large metal furnace. — White-hot steel pouring out of an electric arc furnace in Brackenridge, Penn.
Alfred T. Palmer/U.S. Library of Congress

Control over steel resources and infrastructure made steel a foundation of national power. China’s 21st-century rise to steel dominance is a continuation of this pattern. From 1995 to 2015, China’s contribution to the world steel production increased from about 10% to more than 50%. The White House responded in 2018 with massive tariffs on Chinese steel.

Rare earth metals and global trade

Early in the 21st century, the advance of digital technologies and the transition to an economy based on renewable energies created a demand for rare earth elements.

A wind turbine with three thin blades rising out of the water. — Offshore turbines use several tons of rare earth magnets to transform wind into electricity.
Hans Hillewaert/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Rare earth elements are 17 chemically very similar elements, including neodymium, dysprosium, samarium and others. They occur in nature in bundles and are the ingredients that make magnets super strong and useful. They are necessary for highly efficient electric motors, wind turbines and electronic devices.

Because of their chemical similarity, separating and purifying rare earth elements involves complex and expensive processes.

China controls the majority of global rare earth processing capacity. Political tensions between countries, especially around trade tariffs and strategic competition, can risk shortages or disruptions in the supply chain.

The rare earth metals case illustrates how a single category of materials can shape trade policy, industrial planning and even diplomatic alliances.

Six small piles of rock — Mining rare earth elements has allowed for the widespread adoption of many modern technologies.
Peggy Greb, USDA

Technological transformation begins with societal pressure. New materials create opportunities for scientific and engineering breakthroughs. Once a material proves useful, it quickly becomes woven into the fabric of daily life and broader systems. With each innovation, the material world subtly reorganizes the social world — redefining what is possible, desirable and normal.

Understanding how societies respond to new innovations in materials science can help today’s engineers and scientists solve crises in sustainability and security. Every technical decision is, in some ways, a cultural one, and every material has a story that extends far beyond its molecular structure.

The National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, NASA, and other national and regional agencies have funded former research of Peter Mullner.

– ref. From glass and steel to rare earth metals, new materials have changed society throughout history – https://theconversation.com/from-glass-and-steel-to-rare-earth-metals-new-materials-have-changed-society-throughout-history-258244

July 4, 2025

Underwater lake heatwaves are on the rise, threatening aquatic life

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Iestyn Woolway, Reader and NERC Independent Research Fellow, Bangor University

A view of Lake Superior, one of the Great Lakes. Travis J. Camp/Shutterstock

Lakes are essential to ecosystems, providing freshwater, supporting biodiversity and offering crucial habitat for fish and other aquatic species.

But a recent study by my colleagues and I shows that lakes around the world are warming, not just at the surface, but deep below as well. Subsurface heatwaves in lakes, defined as extreme periods of high water temperature below the surface, are increasing in frequency, duration and intensity.

These hidden extremes could have serious consequences for lake ecosystems. Despite that, the issue remains largely unmonitored and poorly understood.

Lake heatwaves are similar to those in the atmosphere or ocean. They are prolonged periods of excessive warmth. Most research to date has focused on surface temperatures, where climate change has already caused more frequent and intense heatwaves over recent decades.

These surface events can disrupt the chemical and physical balance of lakes, damage food webs and, in some cases, cause mass fish die-offs.

Aquatic species respond to surface heatwaves in different ways. Some benefit if the warming expands their preferred temperature range. But many others, particularly those already living near their thermal limits, face significant stress.

In lakes that stratify during summer – where warm surface water sits above a cooler bottom layer – some species seek refuge from the heat by migrating to deeper water. But what happens when that deeper refuge is no longer cool?

A closer look beneath the surface

To investigate, we analysed temperature data from tens of thousands of lakes worldwide. These included one-dimensional lake models, high-resolution simulations for the Great Lakes of North America, and local models calibrated to specific lake conditions.

By analysing how temperature varies with depth and time, we identified when and where subsurface waters crossed extreme heat thresholds.

We defined subsurface heatwaves as periods when temperatures at particular depths exceeded their typical seasonal range. We also tracked how these events have changed since 1980, and how they might evolve under different emissions scenarios by the end of this century.

Morning sun lights up a rock formation on Lake Huron. — Lake Huron, one of the Great Lakes.
Craig Sterken/Shutterstock

Subsurface heatwaves are already common and they’re becoming more so.

Since 1980, bottom heatwaves (those occurring at the deepest parts of lakes) have increased by an average of more than seven days per decade in frequency, more than two days per decade in duration and they have risen by around 0.2C per decade.

Although these deep-water events tend to be slightly less intense than surface ones, they often last longer.

We also found a rise in “vertically compounding” heatwaves. This is when extreme temperatures happen simultaneously at the surface and bottom of a lake.

These doubled-up events are now happening more than three days per decade more frequently. When they strike, aquatic species can be left with no place to escape the heat.

Even more concerning, the deep-water refuges that once offered shelter during surface heatwaves are shrinking or disappearing altogether. In some lakes, the distance fish need to travel to find cooler water has increased by nearly a metre per decade.

Our simulations suggest that these trends will intensify, especially under high-emission scenarios. By the end of this century, some bottom heatwaves could last for months, with temperature extremes not seen in the historical record.

Why this matters

Lake ecosystems rely on thermal structure. When extreme heat reaches deeper into the water column, it can trigger cascading ecological effects, from shifting fish habitats and altering species distribution, to increased nutrient cycling and algal blooms. It could even affect the release of greenhouse gases like methane from lake bed sediments.

Subsurface heatwaves pose a particular risk to bottom-dwelling species, which may be less mobile or already adapted to cold, stable conditions. The loss of thermal refuges during surface heatwaves also jeopardises species that would otherwise escape to deeper waters.

By ignoring what’s happening below the surface, we risk underestimating the true ecological effects of climate change on freshwater systems.

Our study highlights the urgent need to expand lake monitoring efforts to include subsurface temperatures. While satellites have transformed our understanding of surface warming, they can’t capture what’s happening below.

Future research should examine how different species respond to these deep-water and vertically compounding heatwaves. It should explore how changes in lake thermal structure affect different processes like nutrient cycling and methane production.

For conservation planners, that means incorporating subsurface heatwaves into risk assessments and habitat models. For climate modellers, it means better representing vertical processes in lakes within global Earth system models.

As lakes continue to warm, managing and understanding these hidden heat extremes will be critical to protecting biodiversity and the vital ecosystem services lakes provide.

Iestyn Woolway receives funding from UKRI NERC.

– ref. Underwater lake heatwaves are on the rise, threatening aquatic life – https://theconversation.com/underwater-lake-heatwaves-are-on-the-rise-threatening-aquatic-life-258885

July 4, 2025

How Donald Trump’s economic policies, including uncertainty around tariffs, are damaging the US economy

Source: The Conversation – UK – By John Whittaker, Senior Teaching Fellow in Economics, Lancaster University

Donald Trump set a deadline of July 9 2025 for trade deals to be made before he hits some of the world’s biggest economies with his controversial tariffs. It’s impossible to predict what will happen on the day, but it is already clear that his economic policies are damaging American interests.

Just look at the state of US government debt for example. Currently it stands at US$36 trillion (£26 trillion). And with total economic output (GDP) worth US$29 trillion per year, that debt is 123% of GDP, the highest it has been since 1946.

Government debts are alarmingly high in other countries too (the UK’s is at 104% of GDP, with France at 116% and China at 113%), but the US is towards the top of the range.

The recently passed budget reconciliation bill (what Trump calls the “big beautiful bill”) is projected to add US$3 trillion to that debt over the next decade. With these sorts of numbers, there is little prospect of putting US debt on a downward track.

In 2024, the US government had to borrow an additional US$1.8 trillion to cover spending not supported by tax revenue (the budget deficit). This is equivalent to 6.2% of GDP, a number that is officially predicted to rise to 7.3% during the next 30 years.

The predictable consequence of this fiscal profligacy and the chaotic tariff programme is the high rates of interest that the US government is having to pay for its borrowing.

For instance, the interest rate on ten-year US government debt (otherwise known as its yield) has risen from 0.5% in mid-2020 to 4.3% now. And as government debt yields rise, so do interest rates on mortgages and corporate borrowing.

The power of the dollar

For decades, the United States has enjoyed a high level of trust in the strength, openness and stability of its economy.

As a result, US bonds or “treasuries”, the financial assets that the government sells to raise money for public spending, have long been considered safe investments by financial institutions around the world. And the US dollar has been the dominant currency for international payments and debts.

Sometimes referred to as “exorbitant privilege”, this status of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency brings big advantages. It benefits US consumers by making imported goods cheaper (albeit contributing to the trade deficits (when US imports to a country are worth more than its exports) which bother the president so much).

It also means the US government can borrow a lot of money before doubts arise about its ability to repay. Investors will generally buy as many bonds as the US govt needs to issue to pay for its spending.

The dominance of the dollar in international transactions also brings political power, such as the ability to exclude Russia from major global payment systems.

But this privilege is being eroded by the US president’s tariff agenda. Economic motives aside, it is the way they are being applied – their size and the unpredictability – that is really sapping investor confidence.

It’s costly to adjust trading patterns and supply chains in response to tariffs. So when the scope of future tariffs is unknown, the rational response is to stop investing while awaiting greater certainty.

The dollar has lost 8% in value since the beginning of the year, reflecting investor doubts about the US economy, and making imports even more expensive.

Financial markets are vulnerable

But perhaps the biggest danger to US financial markets is a sudden rise in yields on government debt. No investor wants to be left holding a bond when its yield rises because – as with all fixed-interest debt – the rise in yield causes the bond’s market value to fall. This is because new bonds are issued with a higher yield, making existing bonds less attractive and less valuable.

A bond holder expecting a rise in yield therefore has an incentive to sell it before the rise occurs. But the rise in yield can become self-reinforcing if the scramble to sell becomes a stampede.

Indeed, there was a jump in US yields after the increases in trade tariffs announced on “liberation day” in early April, with the yield on ten-year treasuries rising by 0.5% in just four days.

Magnifying glass on US dollar bill with US flag and financial chart graphics. — Damaged dollar?
Dilok Klaisataporn/Shutterstock

Fortunately, this rise was halted on April 10 when the tariffs were abruptly paused, allegedly in response to the fall in bond prices and an accompanying fall in share prices. The opinion of a senior central banker, that financial markets had been close to “meltdown”, was one of several such warnings.

The dollar is unlikely to be quickly dislodged from its pedestal as the world’s reserve currency, as the alternatives are not attractive. The euro is not suitable because it is the currency of 20 EU countries, each with its own separate government debt. Nor is the Chinese yuan a likely contender, given the Chinese government involvement in managing the yuan exchange rate.

But since March, foreign central banks have been selling off US treasuries, often choosing to hold gold instead.

On Trump’s watch, the reputation of the US dollar as the ultimate safe asset has been tarnished, leaving the financial system more vulnerable – and borrowing more expensive.

John Whittaker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How Donald Trump’s economic policies, including uncertainty around tariffs, are damaging the US economy – https://theconversation.com/how-donald-trumps-economic-policies-including-uncertainty-around-tariffs-are-damaging-the-us-economy-259809

July 4, 2025

Agatha Christie’s mid-century ‘manosphere’ reveals a different kind of dysfunctional male

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gill Plain, Professor of English Literature and Popular Culture, University of St Andrews

This piece contains spoilers for Towards Zero.

Agatha Christie, a middle-class English crime writer who preferred to be known as a housewife, is the world’s bestselling novelist. Since her death in 1976, her work has been translated into over 100 languages and adapted for cinema, TV and even video games.

Her writing is characterised by its cheerful readability and ruthless dissection of hypocrisy, greed and respectability. Christie is fascinated by power and its abuse, and explores this through the skilful deployment of recognisable character types. The suspects in her books are not just there for the puzzle – they also exemplify the attitudes, ideals and assumptions that shaped 20th-century British society.

If we want to know about the mid-century “manosphere”, then, there is no better place to look than in the fiction of Agatha Christie. What did masculinity mean to this writer, and would we recognise it in the gender types and ideals of today? Some answers might be found through the recent BBC adaptation of Towards Zero, which confronts viewers with a range of dysfunctional male types.

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Chief among these is Thomas Royde, a neurotic twitching figure driven to breakdown by the shame of having his word doubted. Gaslit by his pathologically perfect cousin Nevile, Thomas has been dispatched to the colonies, where he has compounded his injuries through financial failure. Broke and broken, the adaptation imagines him returning to the family home with trauma quite literally written on his body.

This is not the Thomas Royde of Christie’s original 1944 novel. That figure was stoic, silent and perfectly capable of managing his failure to live up to the spectacular masculinity of cousin Nevile. Christie’s Thomas may have regretted his romantic losses and physical limitations, but the idea of exposing his pain in public would have horrified him.

This is not a case of repression; rather it speaks to a world in which pain is respected, but simply not discussed. Thomas’s friends, we are told, “had learned to gauge his reactions correctly from the quality of his silences”. The stoical man of few words is a recurrent type within Christie’s fiction. It’s a mode of masculinity of which she approves – even while poking fun at it – and one recognised by her mid-20th century audience.

These are men who embody ideal British middle-class values: steady, reliable, resilient, modest, good humoured and infinitely sensible. They find their fictional reward in happy unions, sometimes with sensible women, sometimes with bright young things who benefit from their calm assurance.

Christie also depicted more dangerous male types – attractive adventurers who might be courageous, or reckless and deadly. These charismatic figures present a troubling mode of masculinity in her fiction, from the effortlessly charming Ralph in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), to Michael Rogers, the all too persuasive narrator of Endless Night (1967).

Superficially, these two types of men might be mapped onto Christie’s own experiences. Her autobiography suggests that she was irresistibly drawn to something strange and inscrutable in her first husband, Archie. By contrast, her second husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan, brought friendship and shared interests.

Yet while it’s possible to see biographical resonances in these types, it is equally important to recognise them as part of a middle-class world view that set limits on acceptable masculinities. In my book, Agatha Christie: A Very Short Introduction, I explore these limits, examining a cultural climate riven with contradictions.

A different time

Mid-20th century culture insisted that men be articulate when discussing public matters – science, politics, sport – but those who extended this to the emotions were not to be trusted. They were seen to be glib, foolish or possibly dangerous.

British masculinity acts rather than talks and does a decent job of work. As a result, work itself is a vital dimension of man-making in Christie’s novels, and in the fiction of contemporaries like Nigel Balchin, Hammond Innes and Nevil Shute.

These writers witnessed the conflicting pressures on men, expected to be both soldiers and citizens, capable of combat and domestic breadwinning. They saw the damage caused by war, unemployment and the loss of father figures. But the answer wasn’t talking. Rather, the best medicine for wounded masculinity was the self-respect that comes with doing a good day’s work.

This ideology still resonates within understandings of “healthy” masculinity, but there are limits to the problems that can be solved through a companionable post-work pint. Which brings us back to the BBC’s Towards Zero. Contemporary adaptations often speak to the preoccupations of their moment, and the plot is driven by one man’s all-consuming hatred of his ex-wife.

With apologies for plot spoilers, perfect Nevile turns out to be a perfect misogynist, scheming against the woman who has – to his mind – humiliated him. But the world of his hatred is a long way from the online “manosphere” of our contemporary age.

Quite aside from the technological gulf separating the eras, Christie does not imagine misogyny as an abusive mass phenomenon, a set of echo chambers which figure men as the victims of feminism. Rather, Nevile, like all Christie’s murderers, kills for reasons that can clearly be defined, detected and articulated: he is an isolated madman, not a cultural phenomenon.

Towards Zero’s topicality – its preoccupation with celebrity, resentment of women and a manipulative gaslighting villain – does much to explain its adaptation, but it does not account for the radical revision of Thomas Royde. Is it an indication that stoicism is out of fashion? Or simply a desire to convert Christie’s cool-tempered fictions into melodramas appropriate for a social-media age?

Whatever the thinking, there is a familiar consolation for Thomas’s pain. He might not get the girl of his dreams, but he does get something better: a steady, reliable woman whose modest virtues illustrate that, in Christie’s world, “ideal masculinity” is unexpectedly non-binary. Women can be just as stoic, reserved and resilient as men.

Christie’s “manosphere”, then, has its share of haters, but they are isolated figures forced to disguise their resentments. They also, frequently, meet untimely ends – another reason why Christie remains a bestseller to this day.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Gill Plain does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Agatha Christie’s mid-century ‘manosphere’ reveals a different kind of dysfunctional male – https://theconversation.com/agatha-christies-mid-century-manosphere-reveals-a-different-kind-of-dysfunctional-male-254726