It is asking a question that reverberates well beyond the ancient Mediterranean: what happens to civilisation when the law of hospitality is broken, and what does it cost a people to come home?

Ever wondered what freaks out wild animals in the African savanna more than lions? Or how reading coffee grounds became a thing? Curiosity might've gotten the cat, but for us humans, it's basically ...

Sign up for our daily newsletter to get the best of The New Yorker in your inbox. For Barbra Streisand, the compulsion to leave Brooklyn, the yearning “to be ...