We have gathered a selection of essays from our first fifty issues, a smorgasbord of intellectual query. A central objective is looking beyond received wisdoms, with the intellectual honesty and courage to challenge accepted narratives. In the first section, Against the Current, we include essays that question the global order, ask what human rights really are, and cast a skeptical eye towards identity politics itself. Another section, Places, takes a geographical approach by offering perspectives from Bangladesh to Tunisia, from China to Sudan—critical histories that invite us to rethink long-held assumptions. Finally we offer Meditations: personal stories of intellectual engagement that carefully weigh perspectives and arguments, seeking not resolution but a proper ambivalence.