Twas Thrilling When Trilling Wrote a Blurb
The renowned literary critic famously withheld his imprimatur from the books of peers and students, with two notable exceptions. What do they reveal?
In the Limelight
Temperance Melodrama on the Nineteenth-Century Stage
Produced by the master entertainer P. T. Barnum, a melodrama about the dangers of alcohol was the first show to run for a hundred performances in New York City.
Public Intellectuals
Beth Macy’s Raising Lazarus on the Overdose Crisis
Dopesick author Beth Macy takes a deeper look at the opioid crisis in Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis.
Cabinet of Curiosities
A Tale of Two Times: Edo Japan Encounters the European Clock
In country that followed a time-keeping system with variable hours, the fixed-hour clock of the Europeans had only symbolic value.
Suggested Readings
Digital Farms, Getting Moving, and the Next Pandemic
Well-researched stories from Slate, Sapiens, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Most Recent
Remembering Gwendolyn MacEwen
The Canadian poet was inspired by everything from Ancient Egyptian mythology to folk magic, from Gnosticism to global politics.
Women Leaders in Africa: The Case of the Igbo
In the precolonial Igbo states of West Africa, power was often wielded by male chiefs or elders, but women had their own forms of authority as well.
A Natural History of Dragons
Dragons began life as snakes, but natural historians gradually began describing them in more fantastical ways.
Royal Succession, Reformed
British history is witness to a long struggle to curtail the power of monarchs and redefine the regulations governing succession to the throne.
In the Limelight
Temperance Melodrama on the Nineteenth-Century Stage
Produced by the master entertainer P. T. Barnum, a melodrama about the dangers of alcohol was the first show to run for a hundred performances in New York City.
Public Intellectuals
Beth Macy’s Raising Lazarus on the Overdose Crisis
Dopesick author Beth Macy takes a deeper look at the opioid crisis in Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis.
Cabinet of Curiosities
A Tale of Two Times: Edo Japan Encounters the European Clock
In country that followed a time-keeping system with variable hours, the fixed-hour clock of the Europeans had only symbolic value.
Suggested Readings
Digital Farms, Getting Moving, and the Next Pandemic
Well-researched stories from Slate, Sapiens, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
