Diversifying in the alternative debt market.When investors look to yield-bearing assets in the alternative debt universe, it’s usually to pursue higher yields compared with traditional debt and fixed-income securities, and to achieve a deeper level of diversification beyond conventional stocks and

Trust but verify.You’ve probably heard that Bitcoin transactions are highly secure and executed with near-perfect accuracy despite lacking a central (or human) entity to verify and oversee the process. It sounds pretty amazing, but how is it possible? Crypto blockchain networks use algorithms to

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: Early life and education: …Qu’est-ce que la propriété? (1840; What Is Property?, 1876). This created a sensation, for Proudhon not only declared, “I am an anarchist”; he also stated, “Property is theft!”

Globalization in reverse? Deglobalization?Back in 1992, U.S. presidential candidate Ross Perot warned there’d be a “giant sucking sound” of U.S. jobs heading to Mexico due to the then-new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The fact is, offshoring —that is, U.S. companies sending

When the economy slows, but prices don’t get the memo. When it comes to understanding how monetary policy works, many of us understand, and even expect, the simplified version: The Federal Reserve lowers interest rates to rev up the engines of economic growth, and it raises interest rates to slow

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is a U.S. government agency established by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (also called the Dodd-Frank Act) in the wake of the 2007–08 financial crisis. The role of the CFPB is to review the practices of

Burning desire: financial independence; retire early.Have you heard of the Financial Independence/Retire Early (FIRE) movement? It’s certainly an alluring pitch. Imagine checking out early from the soul-crushing day job to live on your terms while you’re still young. Hike the mountains, see the

A way to mine for economic clues.It’s a popular myth that manufacturing no longer matters in the U.S. economy. Although China is the world’s largest manufacturer and exporter, U.S. manufacturing and mining aren’t dormant by any means, producing a hefty 18% of all the stuff the world consumes. And

Investing in virtually anything.The metaverse is a network of immersive digital “worlds” that are interconnected so users can move between them, interact with other users, exchange various goods and services, and transact items for virtual or real-world ownership. As the metaverse approaches

Identify what’s overbought and oversold.When a stock is rallying, we assume there’s an influx of buyers willing to pay higher prices for the shares. Similarly, when a stock’s price is falling, we assume the opposite, that sellers are trying to unload assets onto buyers who are willing to pay only

Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès: …General, Sieyès issued his pamphlet Qu’est-ce que le tiers état? (January 1789; “What Is the Third Estate?”), in which he identified the unprivileged Third Estate with the French nation and asserted that it alone had the right to draft a new constitution.

Are consumers spending or not?Did you buy anything last month, like groceries, clothing, or a knickknack for the shelf in the corner? How about a new smartphone or perhaps even a car? Congratulations. You and your stuff are part of a key monthly statistic: The monthly retail sales report. Each

Dave Eggers: …books followed Eggers’s memoir, notably What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (2006). The book chronicled the story of a South Sudanese man who had survived the destruction of his family’s village during Sudan’s civil war and made his way to the United States. In 2007 the…

Vladimir Lenin: Formation of a revolutionary party of Vladimir Lenin: In his What Is To Be Done? (1902), Lenin totally rejected the standpoint that the proletariat was being driven spontaneously to revolutionary Socialism by capitalism and that the party’s role should be to merely coordinate the struggle of the proletariat’s diverse sections on a national and international…

Russian literature: The intelligentsia: …utopian novel Chto delat (1863; What Is to Be Done?). Although appallingly bad from a literary point of view, this novel, which also features a fake suicide, was probably the most widely read work of the 19th century.

Giving digital control and privacy back to users.Have you ever pondered how the Internet works? And we’re not just talking about Web 2.0—today’s Internet of search engines, corporate websites, social media, and ultra-useful information sites like Encyclopædia Britannica—but tomorrow’s Internet.

It’s hard to function financially without a bank.You may have heard the terms “unbanked” or “underbanked” before. Unbanked describes people who do not use the services of any banking institution, and underbanked describes those who have insufficient access to financial services. Everyone can

children’s literature: Russia/Soviet Union: …finest teenage novels, Vadim Frolov’s Chto k chemu (Eng. trans., What It’s All About, 1965), is quite untouched by dogma of any kind. Soviet children’s literature, and especially its vast body of popularized science and technology for the young, however, was in general governed by the ideals of socialist realism,…

Robert Goulet: …and a hit single, “What Kind of Fool Am I,” and that year he won the Grammy Award for best new artist. He placed 15 more albums on the charts by the end of the decade.

Michelle Pfeiffer: …Innocence (1993), Dangerous Minds (1995), What Lies Beneath (2000), Hairspray (2007), and Dark Shadows (2012). After starring in the crime drama The Family (2013), Pfeiffer took a break from acting, but she returned with a myriad of films in 2017. That year she appeared in The Wizard of Lies, an…

What Maisie Knew, novel by Henry James, published in 1897. Set mostly in England, the novel is related from the perspective of Maisie, a preadolescent whose parents were divorced when she was six years old and who spends six months of the year with each parent. The only emotional constant in

Julianne Moore: Movies of the early 21st century: …Game Change before starring in What Maisie Knew, a modern-day adaptation of the Henry James novel. Her later films included the dramedy The English Teacher (2013); Carrie (2013), a horror film based on Stephen King’s classic novel; Non-Stop (2014), an action thriller set on an airplane; and The Hunger

Budd Schulberg: That work, What Makes Sammy Run? (1941), about an unprincipled motion-picture studio mogul, was a great success.

Taraji P. Henson: …can hear men’s thoughts in What Men Want (2019), a remake of the comedy What Women Want (2000). Later in 2019 she appeared in The Best of Enemies, portraying civil rights activist Ann Atwater, who developed an unlikely friendship with C.P. Ellis, a leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

Hermann Sudermann: , What Money Cannot Buy), first performed in Berlin on Nov. 27, 1889, was a milestone in the naturalist movement, although to later critics it seemed a rather trite and slick treatment of class conflicts in Berlin. Heimat (performed 1893; Eng. trans., Magda) carried his fame…

Joy Harjo: Her other poetry collections include What Moon Drove Me to This? (1979); Secrets from the Center of the World (1989), prose poetry, with photographs by Stephen Strom; In Mad Love and War (1990), the winner of a 1991 American Book Award; Fishing (1992); A Map to the Next World: Poetry…

Toni Morrison: …and speeches were collected in What Moves at the Margin: Selected Nonfiction (2008; edited by Carolyn C. Denard) and The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations (2019). She and her son, Slade Morrison, cowrote a number of children’s books, including the Who’s Got Game? series, The Book About…

Chris Burden: …Burden’s noteworthy public installations included What My Dad Gave Me (2008; displayed at Rockefeller Center, New York City, for about a year), a 65-foot (20-metre) skyscraper he built from Erector set parts, and Urban Light (2008), a permanent—and now iconic—installation of some 200 restored antique lampposts outside the Los Angeles…

Mike Nichols: Middle years: Silkwood, Working Girl, and The Birdcage: What Planet Are You From? (2000) was a critical and commercial disappointment. The uneven sci-fi comedy starred Garry Shandling (who coscripted) as an alien who travels to Earth tasked with finding a woman he can impregnate; others in the cast included Bening, Greg Kinnear, Ben…

Maxwell Anderson: …the World War I comedy What Price Glory? (1924), his first hit, a realistically ribald and profane view of World War I. Saturday’s Children (1927), about the marital problems of a young couple, was also very successful. Anderson’s prestige was increased by two ambitious historical dramas in verse—Elizabeth the Queen…

George Cukor: Early life and work: There he made What Price Hollywood? (1932), which established the template for William Wellman’s A Star Is Born (1937) and its remakes (including Cukor’s 1954 version). Constance Bennett starred as a waitress who rises to acting stardom while her alcoholic mentor plummets into disgrace. A Bill of Divorcement…

German literature: After reunification: …Wolf’s narrative Was bleibt (1990; What Remains) had unleashed a violent controversy about the form and function of reflections on the East German past. The subject of the story was Wolf’s reactions to surveillance by the East German state security police. Some readers saw the tale as a self-serving portrayal…

Marxism: Lenin: …oni voyuyut protiv Sotsial-Demokratov? (What the “Friends of the People” Are, and How They Fight the Social-Democrats), Lenin took up Marx’s distinction between “material social relations” and “ideological social relations.” In Lenin’s eyes the importance of Das Kapital was that “while explaining the structure and the development of the…

Joe Orton: Sloane (1964), Loot (1965), and What the Butler Saw (produced posthumously, 1969), were outrageous and unconventional black comedies that scandalized audiences with their examination of moral corruption, violence, and sexual rapacity. Orton’s writing was marked by epigrammatic wit and an incongruous polish, his characters reacting with comic propriety to the…

Malcolm Gladwell: …Ron Popeil, into the collection What the Dog Saw, and Other Adventures (2009).

Charles Simic: Simic’s first volume of poetry, What the Grass Says (1967), was well received; critics noted that his imagery drew on rural and European subjects rather than those of his adopted country. Among Simic’s many subsequent poetry collections are Somewhere Among Us a Stone Is Taking Notes (1969), Dismantling the Silence…

Amy Clampitt: What the Light Was Like (1985), also highly praised, contains several poems about death, including two elegies to her brother, who had died in 1981 and to whom the work was dedicated. Literary critics commented on the ease and certainty with which Clampitt employed literary…

Some positive tweaks to retirement rules.“Exciting new developments” isn’t a phrase you often hear in the world of retirement plans, but there’s good news coming for savers of all ages and stages, thanks to an expansion of the SECURE Act passed by Congress in December 2022. Back in 2019, the

Derek Walcott: The essays in What the Twilight Says (1998) are literary criticism. They examine such subjects as the intersection of literature and politics and the art of translation.

Hilary Swank: …progressing dementia in the drama What They Had (2018). In 2019 she appeared in the sci-fi thriller I Am Mother, which centres on a girl who begins to have doubts about the maternal robot raising her, and the following year in The Hunt, a controversial satire in which conservatives are…

history of film: Taiwan: …nei pien chi tien (2001; What Time Is It There?).

Leo Slezak: …American actor, wrote an autobiography, What Time’s the Next Swan? (1962). The title refers to his father’s famous ad-lib in Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin, when the boat drawn by a swan moved offstage without him.

Iran holds an early presidential election on June 28 after its hard-line president, Ebrahim Raisi, died unexpectedly in a helicopter crash on May 19. Raisi, one of the few figures trusted by both the security establishment and the regime’s clerical guardians, was expected to oversee the transition

Wading through the terms and terminology.Are you the type who wants the latest and greatest in automobile technology, and price is a secondary consideration? If so, you may have crunched the numbers, weighed the pros and cons of leasing versus buying a car, and opted to lease. Now it’s time to put

Jennifer Lopez: Marriage to Marc Anthony and American Idol: Lopez subsequently appeared in What to Expect When You’re Expecting (2012), an ensemble comedy about parenting. In the thrillers Parker (2013) and The Boy Next Door (2015), she played, respectively, a divorced businesswoman who takes part in a heist and a woman who is drawn into a romance with…

It’s still early days.Whether you’re excited about artificial intelligence (AI), frightened by it, or a little bit of both—you may be wondering how AI is regulated, and whether regulators are keeping up with the rapid pace of advancement. Regulation matters for all stakeholders of an AI system,

Unless you’re day-trading, steer clear.When you’re investing, taking risks can bring rewards—or losses. Inverse and leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are very risky investments that can amplify returns but can compound losses if the markets go against you. Inverse and leveraged ETFs are niche

Barbie: Awards: …song, the winner being “What Was I Made For?”—composed by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell and performed by Eilish. The film also won the Golden Globe for cinematic and box office achievement (a new category for the 2024 awards ceremony).

Fitz-James O’Brien: …a drop of water; “What Was It?” in which a man is attacked by a thing he apprehends with every sense but sight; and “The Wondersmith,” in which robots are fashioned only to turn upon their creators. These three stories appeared in periodicals in 1858 and 1859.

On February 25, 2020, a top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decided it was time to level with the U.S. public about the COVID-19 outbreak. At the time, there were just 57 people in the country confirmed to have the infection, all but 14 having been repatriated from Hubei

Taika Waititi: …producer for the TV series What We Do in the Shadows (2019– ) and directed several episodes; the series was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2020.

Italian literature: Fiction at the turn of the 21st century: What We Don’t Know About Children, or A Game We Play) opens a disturbing window onto the perverse and ultimately deadly private world of a group of children abandoned by their families to their own devices. Carlo Lucarelli’s thriller Almost Blue (1997; the original and…

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance): …of Raymond Carver’s short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” The film draws viewers behind the scenes of the fraught production and into Thomson’s mind. The character of Birdman taunts Thomson whenever he is alone, and Thomson exhibits magical powers under Birdman’s influence, but it is…

Nancy Meyers: Meyers next wrote and helmed What Women Want (2000), which featured Mel Gibson as a chauvinistic advertising executive who develops the ability to read women’s minds after an accident. While the romantic comedy received mixed reviews, it was popular with moviegoers and cemented Meyers’s position as a major player in…

Philip Levine: …in 1991 for his collection What Work Is, an honour that may have partly inspired the backward look that he achieved in The Bread of Time: Toward an Autobiography (1994, reissued 2001), a series of autobiographical essays that one critic called both elegant and tough-minded. Among his later books of…

Carolyn Forché: …2019 she published the autobiography What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance.

Sherman Alexie: …writing, and the story “What You Pawn I Will Redeem”—published first in The New Yorker in 2003 and later in the collection Ten Little Indians (2003)—also won prizes. The 2007 novel Flight centres on a teenage orphan who travels through time, viewing moments of historical and personal significance through…

Cutting through the tax rate jargon.They say nothing in life is certain except death and taxes. But the amount you pay in taxes is anything but certain. There’s this big table of rates and income levels. The IRS uses confusing jargon such as marginal tax rates and income tax brackets. And what’s

What’s Bred in the Bone, novel by Robertson Davies, published in 1985 as the second volume of his so-called Cornish trilogy. The other books in the trilogy are The Rebel Angels (1981) and The Lyre of Orpheus (1988). Two angels narrate this story about the mysterious life of a famous art collector

the Andrews Sisters: …which included Private Buckaroo (1942), What’s Cookin’? (1942), and Swingtime Johnny (1943). The trio’s many hits from these years included “Hold Tight,” “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree,” “Rum and Coca-Cola,” “Beer Barrel Polka,” and “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive.” Their recorded performances were heard in the sound tracks of numerous movies,…

Leonardo DiCaprio: …and for his next film, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), he received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor for his realistic portrayal of a teenager with an intellectual disability. Several independent movies followed, including The Basketball Diaries (1995) and Total Eclipse (1995), which focused on poet Arthur Rimbaud’s…

Marvin Gaye: What’s Going On was a critical and commercial sensation in spite of the fact that Gordy, fearing its political content (and its stand against the Vietnam War), had argued against its release. It included the chart-topping singles “What’s Going On,” “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology),”…

Martin Lawrence: …role on the TV series What’s Happening Now!! (1985–88). Lawrence eventually earned small roles in several films, including Do the Right Thing (1989); House Party (1990) and House Party 2 (1991), with his former coworkers Kid ’n Play; and Boomerang (1992). He served as host of the cable television program…

Tina Turner: …female vocal performance for “What’s Love Got to Do with It.” The single became Turner’s signature song. She followed her musical success with a role in the film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). Later albums included Break Every Rule (1986), Foreign Affair (1989), and Wildest Dreams (1996). Her greatest-hits…

Angela Bassett: …of singer Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do with It (1993) received critical and popular praise, and she was nominated for an Academy Award for best actress and won a Golden Globe for best actress in a motion picture musical or comedy. Movies such as the highly acclaimed…

Lily James: Pam & Tommy and other roles from the 2020s: …starred in the romantic comedy What’s Love Got to Do with It? (2022). The following year she appeared onstage with Kristin Scott Thomas in Lyonesse at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London.

Bennett Cerf: …the popular television show “What’s My Line?” (1952–68).

Woody Allen: Youth and early work: …the screenplay for the film What’s New, Pussycat? (1965), in which he also appeared. Allen made his first film, What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), by redubbing a James Bond-like Japanese action film, International Secret Police: Key of Keys (1965), and shifting its focus to the pursuit of a top-secret recipe…

Bugs Bunny: What’s Opera, Doc? (1957)—an animated masterpiece which cast Bugs and Elmer Fudd in the roles of Brunhild and Siegfried in a hilariously tweaked adaptation of Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung—was the first cartoon short to be inducted into the National Film Registry of…

George Seaton: Later films: … and Eva Marie Saint, and What’s So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968) was a whimsical comedy featuring George Peppard and Mary Tyler Moore.

Mary J. Blige: Music career: …of her first solo album, What’s the 411?, produced primarily by rapper Sean (“Puffy”) Combs (Diddy). That album reveals the pain of Blige’s childhood while presenting a unique sound that mixed classic soul with hip-hop and urban contemporary R&B, redefining soul music and influencing a generation of artists. The album…

Retirement account showdown: IRA vs. 401(k) When considering tax-advantaged retirement plans, two majors come to mind: the individual retirement account (IRA) and the 401(k) plan. Key Points If your employer offers a 401(k), how do you decide if you should participate in it versus contributing to

A quick move or a longer setup.Day trading and swing trading are two distinct styles of market speculation that aim to profit from short-term market movements. It really boils down to two things: A day trade can last from mere seconds to hours, while a swing trade can last from days to a few weeks.

Most people are generally familiar with moths and butterflies. You might recognize a beautiful butterfly in a garden and avoid the erratic moths circling your porch light at night. But what about that whitish blur fluttering around during the day? Or that large fuzzy beauty you just spied on a

While river otters and sea otters might appear similar at first glance, the two exhibit many striking differences beyond their aquatic habitats. Although the term sea otter refers to only one species—Enhydra lutris—river otter applies to multiple species in the genus Lontra, which includes the

With an area of almost 3,800,000 square miles (9,840,000 square km), the United States is the fourth largest country in the world. Although its 50 states vary widely in size, one is by far the biggest: Alaska. At 665,384 square miles (1,723,337 square km), it is more than double the size of the

Upward, downward, and sideways.The “yield curve” might sound like something you learned and forgot about in driver’s ed, but it’s actually an important part of understanding the bond market, borrowing costs, and the broader economy. The yield curve might even tell you when the next recession is

Peter Bogdanovich: Films: What’s Up, Doc? (1972) was less impressive though still a commercial hit. A sometimes strained tribute to Hawks’s Bringing Up Baby (1938), it starred Ryan O’Neal as a musicology professor who lugs around a suitcase full of prehistoric rocks and Barbra Streisand as the madcap…

Woody Allen: Youth and early work: Allen made his first film, What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), by redubbing a James Bond-like Japanese action film, International Secret Police: Key of Keys (1965), and shifting its focus to the pursuit of a top-secret recipe for egg salad. A year later Allen played Bond’s nephew in Casino Royale. In…

Ashutosh Gowariker: …out into romantic comedy with What’s Your Raashee? (“What’s Your Sun Sign?”), and in 2010 he returned to period film with the thriller Khelein hum jee jaan sey (“Long Live the Revolution”), set in the 1930s. Gowariker’s later films included the adventure drama Mohenjo Daro (2016) and Panipat (2019), which…

whataboutism, the rhetorical practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation, by asking a different but related question, or by raising a different issue altogether. Whataboutism often serves to reduce the perceived plausibility or seriousness of the

whataboutism, the rhetorical practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation, by asking a different but related question, or by raising a different issue altogether. Whataboutism often serves to reduce the perceived plausibility or seriousness of the

Richard Whately was an Anglican archbishop of Dublin, educator, logician, and social reformer. The son of a clergyman, Whately was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, and took holy orders. While at Oxford, he wrote his satiric Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Bonaparte (1819), in which he

Michel Houellebecq: …domaine de la lutte (1994; Whatever; film 1999) featured an unnamed computer technician. This book brought him a wider audience. He then published another volume of poetry, the bleak Le Sens du combat (1996; The Art of Struggle).

André Maurois: …Quesnay (1926) and Climats (1928; Whatever Gods May Be), focus on middle-class provincial life, marriage, and the family. As a historian he demonstrated his interest in the English-speaking world with his popular histories: Histoire de l’Angleterre (1937; “History of England”) and Histoire des États-Unis (1943; “History of the United States”).…

Vanessa Redgrave: Movies of the 1980s and ’90s: … (1990), and Blanche Hudson in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1991), a remake of the Bette Davis–Joan Crawford film, in which Redgrave costarred with her sister, Lynn. She received a sixth Oscar nomination for her work in Howards End (1992).

Robert Coover: Among his other works were Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears? (1987), which casts Nixon as a simpleminded and lascivious football player during the 1930s in a work that skewers the superficial 20th-century notions of the “American Dream”; Pinocchio in Venice (1991); John’s Wife (1996); Ghost Town…

Henry Cavill: The Tudors and films of the early 2010s: …and the Woody Allen comedy Whatever Works (2009). After The Tudors Cavill proved his skill as an action star, playing Greek hero Theseus in Immortals (2011) and the son of a CIA agent (played by Bruce Willis) in The Cold Light of Day (2012).

Olympic Games: Mascots: The strangest mascot was Whatizit, or Izzy, of the 1996 Games in Atlanta, Georgia, a rather amorphous “abstract fantasy figure.” His name comes from people asking “What is it?” He gained more features as the months went by, but his uncertain character and origins contrast strongly with the Athena…

whatnot, series of open shelves supported by two or four upright posts. The passion for collecting and displaying ornamental objects that began in the 18th century and was widespread in the 19th stimulated the production in England and the United States of this whimsically named piece of furniture.

WhatsApp, free messaging application owned by Meta (formerly Facebook). Users can send text and voice messages on the platform or communicate live via voice or video chat. WhatsApp also supports location and image sharing. The service is primarily used on mobile phones, as it requires a mobile

immune system disorder: Type I allergic reactions: Called a wheal-and-flare reaction, it includes swelling, produced by the release of serum into the tissues (wheal), and redness of the skin, resulting from the dilation of blood vessels (flare). If the injected antigen enters the bloodstream and interacts with basophils in the blood as well as…

wheat, any of several species of cereal grasses of the genus Triticum (family Poaceae) and their edible grains. Wheat is one of the oldest and most important of the cereal crops. Of the thousands of varieties known, the most important are common wheat (Triticum aestivum), used to make bread; durum

Wheat Belt, the part of the North American Great Plains where wheat is the dominant crop. The belt extends along a north-south axis for more than 1,500 miles (2,400 km) from central Alberta, Canada, to central Texas, U.S. It is subdivided into winter wheat and spring wheat areas. The southern area,

Wheat Belt, principal crop-growing region of Western Australia, occupying about 60,000 square miles (160,000 square km) in the southwestern section of the state. Served by the Perth-Albany Railway, the crescent-shaped belt is delineated on the west by a line drawn from Geraldton south through

bran: Wheat bran, the most widely processed, contains 16 percent protein, 11 percent natural fibre, and 50 percent carbohydrate. Most bran is coarsely ground for stock feed. In a more refined form, it is used in breakfast cereal, breads, and muffins for its value to the…

bread, baked food product made of flour or meal that is moistened, kneaded, and sometimes fermented. A major food since prehistoric times, it has been made in various forms using a variety of ingredients and methods throughout the world. The first bread was made in Neolithic times, nearly 12,000

cereal farming: Insects: …evidence of attacks from the wheat bug (Aelia and Eurygaster species). The eggs are laid in the spring, and the new generation appears in the summer. When the wheat is harvested, the bugs leave the stubble field and migrate to nearby foliage for the winter. Wheat bugs puncture the grain…

Wheat Field with Crows, oil painting by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. It is among the most famous and most emotionally evocative of his oeuvre, and its interpretation has been intensely debated. This is one of van Gogh’s final pictures. It was painted in Auvers in July 1890, shortly before his

Jacob van Ruisdael: 1668–70; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), Wheat Fields (c. 1670; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City), and his numerous views of Haarlem—display panoramas of the flat Dutch countryside. The horizon is invariably low and distant and dominated by a vast, clouded sky. Sometimes the small figures in his pictures were…