A colorized photograph of Ao Nagas tribespeople in Nagaland, India, ca. 1900

Can We Recover a Worldview Lost to Colonialism?

Among the Ao Naga of northeast India, humans may have been just one kind of person in a world filled with spiritual beings.
President John F. Kennedy meets with members of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council regarding the crisis in Cuba, October 1962

Beware of the Meeting Minutes

What gets lost when spoken conversations become part of the historical record?
A photograph by Hugo Benioff of the fault scarp near Fairview Peak, Nevada resulting from a December 16, 1954 earthquake.

What Does an Earthquake Sound Like?

Seismologist Hugo Benioff spent decades turning seismic vibrations into signals he could study—and, eventually, hear.
Choice, pathway selection dilemma concept.

Teaching Students to Follow an Idea

A five-step classroom exercise reframes research as an evolving scholarly conversation rather than a search for sources.
Low counter circulation desk with three women.

Building a Library in Wartime Paris

Photos from the American Library in Paris reveal how librarians brought books to US troops during World War I.
A portrait of a Japanese soldier by Baron Raimund von Stillfried, 1881

Why Italian Fascists Loved Samurai

Japan offered Italian Fascists a powerful example of how ancient traditions could serve modern nationalism.
The Romans Cause a Wall to Be Built for the Protection of the South by William Bell Scott

Ancient Rome’s Complicated Border

What did Hadrian’s Wall actually do? Its history challenges the idea that walls simply separate one side from another.
Young woman reading a book in the twilight, 1890s

The Women Who Sold Books Door to Door

Three nineteenth-century memoirs reveal the risks and rewards of life on the road as a traveling bookseller.
From left to right: Frederick Barthelme, Mary Robison, Raymond Carver, Amy Hempel, Jayne Anne Phillips, and Ann Beattie

Minimalist Fiction in Six Short Stories

The art of saying more with less, by Raymond Carver, Amy Hempel, Frederick Barthelme, Jayne Anne Phillips, Mary Robison, and Ann Beattie.
The Great Railway Disaster between Paris and Versailles, 1842

How the Railways Killed a Medieval Law

Deodands put a price on objects that caused death, sometimes providing compensation to bereaved families.