The cover of The Marking of the English Working Class by EP Thompson

E. P. Thompson and the American Working Class

Published in 1963, Thompson’s influential The Making of the English Working Class quickly led to questions about the nature of the American working class.
View in the Susquehanna Valley by Charles Wilson Knapp

The Mysterious Madame Montour

Montour presented herself as a cultural intermediary between Native Americans and whites in colonial America. But who was she?
JSTOR Daily celebrates Black History Month

Celebrating Black History Month

JSTOR Daily editors pick their favorite stories for Black History Month.
George Polk, c. 1943

The Murder Behind the George Polk Awards for Journalism

The murder of American journalist George Polk in Greece remains unsolved more than seventy-five years later.
Fisherman on the bank of a river, Ancient Greece.

Fish Addiction: An Ancient Greek Paranoia

An obsession with eating fish mapped onto all sorts of social anxieties, from gluttony and gambling problems to wasteful spending and licentiousness.
Artist’s conception of early star formation:

When Everything in the Universe Changed

The revolutionary James Webb Space Telescope and next-gen radio telescopes are probing what’s known as the epoch of reionization.
"Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid." Illustration for Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies by Jessie Wilcox Smith, ca. 1916

Man of Science, Man of God

In The Water-Babies, Charles Kingsley parodied the dogmatic belief held by many in Victorian England that faith and reason are incompatible.
Poet Johnathan McClain reads his poetry at the Bowery Poetry Club December 6, 2002 in New York City.

The Legacy and Power of Performance Poetry: A Reading List

MTV might take credit for getting spoken word on the pop cultural radar, but it’s a tradition that spans millennia and continents.
Bag of Money with Coins and Bills

How Progressives Legalized Usury

In the early twentieth century, reformers united with capitalists to promote high-interest lending, overthrowing opposition to usury rooted in Christian tradition.
Illustration of Rove Beetle fighting with an ant

Beetles, Girl Bosses, and Jennifer Aniston in the Brain

Well-researched stories from Nautilus, SAPIENS, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.