The Surprising Contents of an American POW’s Journal
There were 35 million prisoners of war held during World War II. One soldier's diary full of collages and drawings brings a human dimension to that number.
Women, Partition, and Violence
The 1947 partition of India and creation of Pakistan came with a hefty price—especially for the subcontinent’s women.
Making Egypt’s Museums
The world’s largest archaeological museum is poised to open on the Giza Plateau, building on two centuries of museum planning and development.
Spanish Colonists were Desperate for European Food
Spanish colonists in the Americas were terrified that their essential humors would change if they ate local food.
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.
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?
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.
The Complicated History of Pointy Hats
What do sorcerers, bishops, and garden gnomes all have in common? Pointy hats that share a common story deeply enmeshed in European antisemitism.
The Partisans of Modena
The legacy of anti-Mussolini resistance in the northern Italian city endures as fascist impulses once again loom.
De-Bunking the Barbarians
The idea of barbarian invasions comes from the nineteenth century, when they were constructed as the decisive event that wrenched the West into modernity.