Child laborers at the entrance of a Sicilian sulfur mine

How Sicilian Sulfur Fueled the Industrial Revolution

Britain’s textile boom depended on a resource extracted under brutal conditions far from its factories.
Pamphlet from boycotters from the Local 366 Union

“Brewed with Blood”: The Coors Beercott of the 1970s

An unusual coalition transformed a labor dispute into one of the longest-running consumer protests in US history.
From left to right: Audre Lorde, Chen Chen, Richard Siken, Adrienne Rich, Eileen Myles, and Ocean Vuong.

10 Modern and Contemporary Poems by Queer Writers

Love poems, political declarations, lyrical confessions, and formal experiments by Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Ocean Vuong, Eileen Myles, and more.
A collage featuring the cover of the Battle of Dorking

The Evolution of Britain’s Invasion Fiction

How fears of foreign plots and national decline moved from nineteenth-century novels into today's thrillers.
A sale of enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina, 1854

How the Slave Trade Built Charleston

The city's prosperity grew from a system that trafficked human beings and turned their lives into profit.
From the cover of Sidereus Nuncius

Anatomy of a Galileo Forgery

It was hailed as a historic discovery—until a trail of clues revealed one of the rare-book world's most audacious scams.
Oscar Wilde and Alfred Douglas, 1893

The Catholic Turn of Oscar Wilde’s Lover

Lord Alfred Douglas’s journey from Hellenism to Catholic mysticism shows how queer Victorians sought meaning and redemption through religion.
Tyeb Mehta

The Lasting Power of Tyeb Mehta’s Art

Long overshadowed by his peers, the Indian painter is now recognized for his haunting vision of modern life.
Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.40754518?seq=22

The Oral Histories of the AIDS Crisis

The voices of artists and activists illuminate the human experience behind the AIDS epidemic.
Fidel Castro, Havana, 1978

Inventing “Machismo” in the US

Academics and media turned “machismo” into a cultural stereotype during the Cold War.