Venice, the Walkable Sixteenth-Century City
In early modern Venice, walking was the most convenient mode of transportation for almost everyone. It was also a symbol of strength and nobility for elites.
A Private Coup: Guatemala, 1954
A 1954 coup, backed by the CIA and private citizen William Pawley, installed an authoritarian regime and touched off four decades of civil war in Guatemala.
Plough Monday
Or, how to follow the Christmas holiday with a festival of pranks, trick-or-treating, and drunken revelry.
Hoosier Cabinets and the Dream of Efficiency
Out of Indiana came a beloved wooden innovation that helped change the status of the kitchen in the American home.
In the Shipyards of San Francisco
Photographer E. F. Joseph captured the dignity of the hundreds of Black women and men who worked on SS George Washington Carver during World War II.
The Devilish History of Devil’s Island
French Guiana's Devil’s Island has witnessed some of humanity’s hardest moments, from the brutalities of slavery to the punishments of penal servitude.
Self-Publishing and the Black American Narrative
Bryan Sinche’s Published by the Author explores the resourcefulness of Black writers of the nineteenth century.
Çatalhöyük: Its Story Continues
Our understanding of the Neolithic city of Çatalhöyük continues to evolve as archaeologists challenge inherited biases in the face of new material evidence.
Wilhelm Reich: Twice Burned
A psychoanalyst and physician, Reich fled the Nazis only to be detained by the US as an “enemy alien” during World War II. And then came the sexual revolution.
Recovering the Malay Manuscripts of South Africa
Descendants of those trafficked from Southeast Asia to South Africa by the Dutch, Cape Malay Muslims use surviving kietaabs to connect to their heritage.