How Sailors Brought the World Home
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, sailors gained a knowledge of the world and access to exotic goods unlike anything other non-elites could imagine.
From Weapons to Wildlife?
While war is an environmental as well as human disaster, readiness and preparation for armed conflict is more ambiguous ecologically.
When San Francisco Feminists Rated Mexican Abortions
The California activists played the role of a health agency to ensure women received safe and competent health care in Mexican clinics.
Policing Radicals: Britain vs. the United States
British policing of Communism before and into the Cold War has often been compared favorably with America’s witch-hunt hysteria. But was it really better?
The Nashville Museum of Natural and Artificial Curiosities
Inspired by Peale’s Philadelphia Museum, artist and collector Ralph E. W. Earl founded a similar institution in Tennessee in 1818.
Did Caterina Sforza Flash an Army?
According to legend, Sforza lifted her skirts to show her adversaries that she had the body parts to make more children. But why?
The Shameless City
The discourse around police raids of so-called molly houses reflected the fear that London was a new Sodom where anonymity allowed people to be shameless.
Tenzing Norgay: The Mountaineer Who Refused to be Categorized
By remaining vague about his own biography, Norgay called into question the idea of nationhood and made a deafening point about actions speaking louder than words.
How Books Taught Europeans to Smoke
The printed word helped spread the inhaling habit across the continent.
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Sandy beaches and luxury hotels seem to define this Caribbean nation, but it’s the music and architecture that truly speak to its complicated history.