Brave Thinkers: A Retrospective

Drawing exclusively from our archives, we have selected a handful of articles that, we believe, not only represent Brave Thinking at particular moments in history but also capture some important aspect of their century as a whole, offering a vista across the span of decades, wars, discoveries, and struggles. From T. W. Higginson’s arguing, in 1859, against the grain of his time, that women should learn to write, to Vannevar Bush’s revolutionary 1945 article that helped lay a foundation for the Internet, this small selection of Atlantic articles will provide a taste of the scope of the most interesting ideas, issues, and Brave Thinking that have helped shape the most important discussions of our history.