Ethan Watters

In the Summer of 1995, a young graduate student in anthropology at UCLA named Joe Henrich traveled to Peru to carry out some fieldwork among the Machiguenga, an indigenous people who live north of Machu Picchu in the Amazon basin. The Machiguenga had traditionally been horticulturalists who lived in single-family, thatch-roofed houses in small hamlets composed of clusters of extended families. For sustenance, they relied on local game and produce from small-scale farming. They shared with the...

In 1967, a 56-year-old lawyer met a young inmate with a brilliant mind and horrifying stories about life inside. Their complicated alliance—and even more complicated romance—would shed light on a nationwide scandal, disrupt a system of abuse and virtual slavery across the state, and change incarceration in Texas forever.

NY Times article

The Organ Detective: Hidden Global Market in Human ...

Why Do People Behave Nicely?
No one may ever know unless social psychologists shake off their fascination with jerks

I’m a sucker for food trends. I get my dietary health advice primarily from tabloid headlines, and I usually believe only information that confirms my preexisting tastes and biases. “Drinking more coffee leads to a longer life,” says CNN. Got it. Red meat “can be part of a heart healthy diet,” proclaims Fox News. Great! “Adding Red Wine To Hot Chocolate Is The Answer For Everything,” reports the Huffington Post. I knew that all along.
Kombucha was a little bit outside of my comfort zone, but ...

Here's what happened to you when the 8.0 quake hit

The new meaning of friendship for a generation delaying marriage

Some thoughts about the disaster in San Francisco's future

Psychiatry is under attack for not being scientific enough, but the real problem is its blindness to culture. When it comes to mental illness, we wear the disorders that come off the rack.

The most devastating consequence of the spread of American culture across the globe has not been our golden arches or our bomb craters, but our bulldozing of the human psyche itself. American-style depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anorexia have begun to spread around the world like contagions, and the virus is us.

Creating of one of the world's largest glass sculptures comes with a lot of heartbreaks.

The Germ Theory of Democracy, Dictatorship, and You...

Ethan Watters – on why he gambles. | Open Letters