China almost bankrupted Rome through its aesthetic craving for imported silks, and wrenched the British Empire apart with the chemical high of costly teas. Now the West faces a metaphysical addiction to its “toys.”

A short film by Donald Weber—an insider’s glimpse at red carpet culture and paparazzi during the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.

Although it’s never been recognized by the international community, Somaliland broke away from Somalia during the civil war. Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, a bombed-out ghost town only fifteen years ago, is now thriving. But across the border in Ethiopia there’s trouble. Somali Ogadenis are still fighting their own, doomed war of secession.

The rise of the ‘Third World Preacher’ and how the increasingly global reach of African Pentecostalism is proving there are many ways of being modern.

Our contemporary coureurs du bois head straight into Manitoba’s heart of whiteness to plumb the true meaning of an Arctic Front. Can Western Civilization and Immanuel Kant triumph over The Land God Gave Cain? Your guide to the Ices of Northern Canada.

Okay, here’s the assignment — myself and a stylist drove around western Ukraine in an Opel, purposely avoiding the big cities, sticking to the back roads, looking for “real” people to be our models. In the trunk of the car, thousands of dollars worth of high fashion from Europe and New York. Change in the car, you look great!

The recent climate change summit in Cøpenhagen illustrated the new relationships between magazines, bloggers, activists, and advocacy groups, revealing how journalists are now working with the groups they once reported on.

Havana’s most conspicuous foreign mission is the former Soviet (now Russian) embassy, which seems to glower rather direly back at anyone who dares to look at it. The obelisk erupting from its brutalist tower block does suggest a periscope from which those inside might be surveilling the city, but for those of us with an unhealthy fascination with totalitarian design the building is utterly compelling.

Russians have for decades fashioned functional objects from such cast-off items as forks, plastic bottles and onion bags. Collector Vladimir Arkhipov sheds light on the artful labours collected in his archive of “post-material folklore”.

“He who says something is impossible is not speaking Korean” —Kim Jong Il. Throughout the twentieth century, certain filmmakers explored the relationship between visuality and language. One such person was Kim Jong Il, who employed his theories on Juche-oriented literature and cinema.

A commonplace Hindi term, jugaad describes everyday acts of innovation. As artist Sanjeev Shankar tells it: “A guy with 10 rupees has a dream to own a tractor or a television. He’ll start thinking in a radically inventive manner to get it, and do so with whatever means or resources he has at hand.”

Andrew Gregg interviews Edmundo Edwards, one of the pre-eminent archeological experts of Polynesia, from his work studying the moai of Easter Island, to discovering lost cities in the Marquesas and Tahiti and unearthing the sacred tikis of Raivavae in the Austral Island chain. He is also one of the very best raconteurs alive and a first-hand witness to the weird modern history of Rapa Nui.

Chris Rainier has spent the better part of the last 15 years photographing the world’s tattooing cultures, indigenous and otherwise. His last, best place for tattoos was on the island of Siberut, six hours by boat from the west coast of Sumatra, then another six hours up river in a motorized dugout canoe. Andrew Gregg reports on the documentary he filmed there with Rainier.

David Byrne on how his travels in Asia changed the way he thinks about performance.

It’s shortly before midnight when we arrive at Manaus’ Sambódromo. The atmosphere outside the stadium is a bit Saturday night-at-the-rodeo meets samba party. Fireworks explode, the friends I’m with are already drunk and screaming nonsensically, and so too are many of the others streaming inside. A night of Boi Bumbá, the Amazonian version of Carnaval.

When Lenny Dykstra is being held up a as a financial genius and no one is questioning it, well, you’re probably in for a bumpy ride. Michael Takasaki considers just one of the more dubious signs on the way to a financial crisis.

Let me be brief: I’m a ham guy. That’s not to say that I raise my own hogs and smoke my own hams. Or go out of my way to eat ham whenever possible. Or that I’m able to hold forth on every ham-related topic that comes up. Well, that’s probably the closest to being true, but only because ham is rarely a topic of conversation. No, I consider myself a ham guy because I recently realized the role ham has played as a sort of connecting thread throughout my adult life. (Also, I really do like ham quite a bit.)