A Spanish Nobleman, 17th century

Nostalgia for Manly Men in Seventeenth-Century Spain

Moralists found it easy to criticize Spanish men, particularly the high-born among them, for all sorts of supposed failures of masculinity.
From Dawn of the Dead

The Living Dead Embody Our Worst Fears

Zombie movies are scary fun, but they also help us examine our anxieties about contagious disease and unstoppable chaos.
News reporters mingle with members of the International Brigade, amongst them is Ernest Hemingway (with mustache and glasses), during the Spanish Civil War, c. 1937.

The International Brigades

Foreigners fighting for Ukraine may call to mind the International Brigades that fought in defense of the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War.
Women digging near damaged train tracks during the Battle of Stalingrad, USSR, during World War II.

Counting War’s Civilian Dead

Despite claims of precision strikes and the proliferation of smart bombs, the number of civilians killed in war appears staggeringly high.
Barabbas

A Passover Tradition to Promote Jewish Unity

Freeing a prisoner—a gesture of generosity and benevolence—may have been a way to bring together a fractured spiritual community.
Episode of the Siege of Sebastopol During the Crimean War in 1855

Empire: The Russian Way

Russia's rise as an imperial power was built on intercontinental expansion, and a mission of "civilizing, protecting and educating" the conquered.
Mary R. Hyde, matron, and students at Carlisle Indian Training School

Mothers Against Mothers in the American West

The participation of white mothers in the "bitter robbery" of Indigenous children from their families was a cruel irony in the colonialist programs of the US and Australia.
Benito Mussolini meets an enthusiastic group of mothers and their babies in Turin, circa 1940.

Mussolini’s Motherhood Factories

In fascist Italy, childbirth, breastfeeding and motherhood were given a hybrid structure of industrial management and eugenicist biological essentialism.
Alexander Berkman speaks at Socialist meeting in Union Square, New York, on May Day, 1908

The NYC –> RUS Yiddish Socialist Pipeline

At the turn of the twentieth century, Yiddish became the language of political organizing for Russian Jews, thanks to the flow of literature from New York.
Cover of Muhammed Speaks, 1975

The Nation of Islam’s Role in US Prisons

The Nation of Islam is controversial. Its practical purposes for incarcerated people transcend both politics and religion.