November 2020
On the Berfrois Radar
The survival of remains of one of the tiltyard towers was known, but the radar survey has shown up tantalizing glimpses of additional structures...
Read MoreCenturies of Constantinople
She dwarfed all other remaining cities of the Roman Empire as well as former western Roman imperial and cross-frontier territories, and all but a few eastern cities...
Read MoreSold-out meant three seats apart…
My first experience was at the Konzerthaus Berlin, a beautiful old building with a huge concert auditorium whose ceiling reaches up 90 or 100 feet above the seating area...
Read MoreScience needs birds and frogs…
If the history of physics with its creative interplay between frogs and birds is any guide, there is much cause for optimism...
Read More‘There were always more books than the small shelves could contain’
I grew up in the aftermath of Nasser’s Egypt, where public education was made free for all. For me, learning has always been remote…
Read MoreHow objective was Japanese transwar fieldwork?
The post-1968 era inaugurated the unraveling of Japanese anthropology’s transwar consensus about its goals to produce objective, field-based research that uncovered universal laws of social development and diffusion...
Read MoreRachel Howard: How We Voted
I now worship, through my computer, at a church 140 miles away, where talk of “social justice” is a normal part of nearly every sermon...
Read MoreSikkim’s Integration/Annexation/Merger
How the change came about is a story with multiple plots involving India’s greatest spymaster, a defiant king, his ambitious political rival, and two enigmatic foreign women...
Read MoreVida Goldstein and Australasian Suffragists in the International Sphere
What does this Federation-era snapshot tell us about Australia’s relationship to the wider world? And what is Goldstein’s place in larger histories of Australasian suffrage and democracy?
Read MoreAlbert Rolls: Myself/Condition
Wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, crystal-button, non-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue Spanish pouch?
Read MoreWith the Seine as its mirror and protector…
The site has been holy since antiquity, perhaps explaining why Notre Dame feels spiritual, even for nonbelievers. A Druid shrine and then a pagan temple dedicated to Jupiter, the chief of the Roman gods, are believed to have stood on this spot...
Read MoreA History of the Idea of Ending Poverty
History confirms the intuition that ‘ending poverty’ has little political traction as a near-term goal when mass chronic poverty is seen to be the norm and poor citizens have little political influence...
Read MoreThe tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right...
Read MoreThe thing about new blooms is that they tend to bleed— / Those petals birthed / hugging close / that come warmer weather are tricked into jumping away...
Read MoreI spent a good part of my childhood at home staring outside my bedroom window, following the trail of planes approaching the nearby Paris airport in the sky from my banlieue. I envied the passengers...
Read MoreThe tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right...
Read MoreThe thing about new blooms is that they tend to bleed— / Those petals birthed / hugging close / that come warmer weather are tricked into jumping away...
Read MoreI spent a good part of my childhood at home staring outside my bedroom window, following the trail of planes approaching the nearby Paris airport in the sky from my banlieue. I envied the passengers...
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