Wanting to Believe In Rainmakers
A form of entertainment and outgrowth of desperation, self-styled rainmakers allowed the powerless people of the Great Plains to seemingly take action.
Onna-Bugeisha, the Female Samurai Warriors of Feudal Japan
In 1868 a group of female samurai took part in the fierce Battle of Aizu for the very soul of Japan.
High Water and Its Discontents
About half of the world’s population depends on water from the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. Can India's hydro-hegemony help avoid war over this limited resource?
Iran’s Protest Culture
A succession of authoritarian regimes birthed a strong tradition of collective action.
John Donne’s Listicle For the Well-Prepped Courtier
“The Courtier’s Library” is a list of books every courtier should know about, a cheat sheet for name-dropping in society. The trouble? Its books are imaginary.
Eleanor of Aquitaine’s “Court of Love”
Allegedly, the noblewomen of Poitiers solved the problems of love, lost and found. But was the court real, or was it just the fanciful invention of historians?
Creating a Safety Net: CST in International Law
Robust international partnership models that build capacity and trust can help fight child sex tourism and commercial sexual exploitation of children.
Kidnappers of Color Versus the Cause of Antislavery
Thousands of free-born Black people in the North were kidnapped into slavery through networks that operated as a form of “Reverse Underground Railroad.”
Understanding the Indian Child Welfare Act
The ICWA wasn’t implemented perfectly, but it reversed a centuries-old pattern of removing Native children from their families and their tribes.
HUAC versus Women Strike for Peace
American leftists were hamstrung by the Cold War’s domestic clampdown on communism, but in the 1960s, Women Strike for Peace re-wrote the book of dissent.