National Geographic Magazine - UK April 2023

RECENTLY I READ the 2018 book The Wizard and the Prophet, by Charles C. Mann. Through the lens of the lives of 20th-century scientists Norman Borlaug and William Vogt, it explores two contrasting visions of how humanity can meet the challenges we face as our population grows and our impact on the planet increases. On the one hand is Vogt’s embrace of limits: We should restrict ourselves to what Earth can handle. On the other is Borlaug’s belief in innovation’s promise: We can invent solutions. Many, including me, don’t see these two notions as binary but rather believe a combination is our way forward. Still, there’s no consensus on the best approach. This month National Geographic explores the ramifications of a milestone reached late last year, when the United Nations…

LOOKING AT THE EARTH FROM EVERY POSSIBLE ANGLE…

IT WAS WHILE WATCHING the movie The Savages in 2009 that photographer Kendrick Brinson caught her first glimpse of Sun City, Arizona, a sprawling retirement community northwest of Phoenix. The film scene—with bright desert light, cacti, golf carts, and tidy rows of ranch-style homes—“had this really strange, very visually interesting look to it,” she says. Since then, Brinson, 40, has gone every year to photograph Sun City’s residents, some of whom have become her close friends. Observing the enthusiasm people have for the many activities there, the self-described perfectionist says she learned something about herself: “I realized that I don’t have to be great, or even good, at something. I can just like the way it feels.” She’s taken up hobbies such as watercolor painting. Opened in 1960, Sun City…

IN THIS SECTION Heron Hunting Trick Mummies and Portraits Long-Lived Animals Balinese Masks THE PHILOSOPHER Kwame Anthony Appiah once asked why some people feel the need to believe in a more equal past to picture a more equal future. Many of us look at the stranglehold that gender-based oppression has on our societies and wonder if there was a time when men didn’t have this much power, when femininity and masculinity didn’t mean what they do now. When we search for powerful women in ancient history, when we try to identify precedents for equality in the distant past, perhaps we also betray our longing for an alternative in a world in which we fear there may be none. Patriarchy—giving all power and authority to the father—can sometimes seem like a…

In India, where I once lived, the Nairs of the southern state of Kerala had powerful matrilineal families until relatively recently. They were ruled over by an influential aristocracy, with people living in grand extended households. “Nair women always had the security of the homes they were born in throughout their lives and were not dependent on their husbands,” writes historian Manu Pillai. “And they were effectively at par with men when it came to sexual rights.” No single theory can explain why matriliny in Kerala declined. It was a gradual shift, driven by British colonialists and Christian missionaries shocked at the power and freedom that women had, combined with changing social norms as people traveled more widely in the 19th century. Remnants of matriliny did survive. Kerala is still…

If the only way of thinking about gender and power is through binary opposition between women and men, it becomes impossible to imagine men sharing status with women, or the balance of power changing with circumstance. But this often occurs in matrilineal societies. For instance, the Asante in Ghana divide leadership between the queen mother (a position she holds in her own right, not because she’s anyone’s mother or wife) and the male chief. It was the Asante ruler Nana Yaa Asantewaa (left) who led an army to rebel against British colonial rule in 1900. “If you, the men of Asante, will not go forward, then we will,” she told the chiefs. “I shall call upon my fellow women.” Though her forces besieged a British fort for several months, Yaa…