What “Pain” Means
The English word “pain” once meant punishment, but over time, it’s been used to refer to different kinds of unpleasant experiences.
The Maldives: Paradise Lost?
Marketed as a luxury tourist destination, the Maldives struggles with the legacy of an authoritarian government and the existential threat of climate change.
Foreign Germs: The Stigmatization of Immigrants
The stigmatization of immigrants through the language of disease and contagion is as American as apple pie.
Crocodile of a Migraine? An Egyptian Rx
Why the ancient Egyptians did—or did not—recommended strapping a clay crocodile to an aching head.
Simone Weil: Voluntary Worker
The weeks Weil spent working in French factories helped to develop her ideas about the meaning and value of labor.
Working on the (Underground) Railroad
Born a free Black man, William Still kept the books and managed the money for the Philadelphia branch of the Underground Railroad.
On The Fragility of Our Knowledge Base
Historian Glenn D. Tieffert shows how state interests in the People’s Republic of China can be protected by editing online databases and collections.
Laughing With the Fascists
Mussolini’s regime isn’t generally associated with a sense of humor, but the Fascist party found comedy useful in certain circumstances.
Close Calls: When the Cold War Almost Went Nuclear
Most of the nuclear near-misses during the Cold War were kept under wraps, and they still make for unnerving reading in the twenty-first century.
Industrial Policy via Women’s Magazines
In the early 1900s, women’s magazines helped both women and men grapple with China’s fast-changing world of technology and industrial activity.