Drinking Women, Scientific Art, and Torturing Trees
Well-researched stories from The London Review of Books, Atlas Obscura, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Food…in…Space!
A brief history of astronaut food, from nutrition cubes to space salads.
How an Incan Nobleman Contested Spanish History
Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala left behind a one-of-a-kind object that undermines the crónicas de Indias.
How Social Upheaval Gave Rise to the Picaresque Novel
How did the arcadian shepherd and chivalric knight-errant, centuries-old fixtures of European literature, give way to this witty rascal, the pícaro?
Gossip Girls (and Boys)
Researchers found that male and female adolescents may respond differently to gossip or other forms of social aggression.
Reclaiming Rice in Taiwan
After World War II, the US ramped up international food aid, both as a Cold War strategy and as a way to distribute surplus products.
Race-baiting the Last Big City Socialist
When business interests tried to use red-baiting to take down a socialist mayor of Milwaukee in the Fifties, it didn't work, so they used race-baiting instead.
Share These Victorian Holiday Cards
It's all birds and flowers and kittens in these greeting cards. May they, as one of the cards says, keep winter from your heart.
Are You Still Watching?
The work of cinema in the age of streaming services.
The Paradoxical Pomegranate
Aphrodisiac and contraceptive, enflaming and cooling, the pomegranate was a balancing act, mediating between opposing states.