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Black and white headshot of author Livia Gershon

Livia Gershon

Livia Gershon is a freelance writer in Nashua, New Hampshire. Her writing has appeared in publications including Salon, Aeon Magazine and the Good Men Project. Contact her on Twitter @liviagershon.

An illustration from the masthead of The Catholic Worker

Catholics Against Racism

As early as the 1930s, Black Catholic parishioners formed alliances with their white counterparts to put their churches in service of anti-racist goals.
Twin Cities Pride, 2011

How Minnesota Became a Queer Hmong Mecca

Despite policies meant to scatter immigrants from the same ethnic group across the United States, the Twin Cities area became a refuge for LGBTQ Hmongs.
Ettore Petrolini

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.
Cover of The Culture Arts Review also known as 文华 Wén huá, 1929

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.
Source: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/object/Façade-van-het-Dogepaleis-te-Venetië--bf66995c5e586e6e743e81f058f33dfa

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 priest holds a christening for a baby of Tibetan ethnic minority group attends a mass at a church of Cizhong Village on December 25, 2006 in Deqin County of Yunnan Province, China

A Tibetan Christmas

The story of Cizhong’s Catholic holiday festival began when French missionaries arrived in northwest Yunnan with plans to spread their faith across Tibet.
The Feast of the Gods, 1514/1529 by Giovanni Bellini

Mining for European Art

Advances in painting in early modern Europe were the product not just of artistic innovation but of changes in mining and manufacturing technology.
The first meeting between Montezuma II and Hernando Cortez in Mexico City, 1519

Was the Story of Cortés Plagiarized from Arabic?

The mythic stories of the Spanish conquest of Mexico seem to have been largely taken from earlier tales of the Muslim conquest of southern Spain.
Pleurants (Weepers), unknown artist, ca. 1295

Theologies of Emotion in Medieval Europe

The framework used by theologians to understand emotions changed in the Middle Ages, thanks in part to new translations of Arabic texts.
Site of the September 17, 1963 bus and freight train collision near Chualar, California, which killed 32 Mexican migrant farmworkers

The Tragedy that Transformed the Chicano Movement

In 1963, more than thirty Mexican guest workers died in a terrible accident in California. The fallout helped turn farmworkers’ rights into a national cause.
A wild turkey

The Great American Turkey

The turkey was semi-domesticated and kept in pens in the American Southwest some 2,000 years ago—but not for the reason you think.
Saint Jean de Brebeuf Confronts the Huron Indian Council

Making Scents of Jesuit Missionary Work

The use of sensory stimulants like incense gave Jesuits a common framework with the North American nations they encountered on missionary trips.
Posters urging people to report sex trafficking are seen at a metromover rail stop on November 06, 2019 in Miami, Florida.

The Anti-Sex-Trafficking Vigilantes Next Door

A fear of rampant sex-trafficking in American cities sparked a new wave of civilian vigilante activity in the early twenty-first century. 
IBM Model 72 Kana Selectric Typewriter

How IBM Took Europe

After World War II, IBM worked to influence the new balance of power by locating facilities for the production of its electric typewriter across Europe.
An illustration of a Greyhound

How Al Capone Made Greyhound Racing Great

In the 1920s, Chicago became the greyhound racing capital of the country, thanks in part to the power of mobsters like Capone, who was a big fan.
People work to clear the rubble near the village of Nuan Seetaga following the 8.3 magnitude strong earthquake which struck on Tuesday, on October 3, 2009 in Pago Pago, American Samoa

A Village Responds to Disaster

When a tsunami struck American Samoa in 2009, the key to a swift response was Indigenous institutions that drew on local knowledge and community training.
Antique wood truncheon club from the 1920s

The Rise of Police Torture in New Orleans

Even as crime rates dropped in the 1930s, the police of New Orleans stepped up their use of torture to obtain confessions from Black Americans accused of crimes.
Rabbis Chant On Capitol Steps, Washington, D.C., 1945

Jews vs. the “Judeo-Christian Tradition”

Since the 1930s, the idea of a “Judeo-Christian tradition” has been used in American politics, but some Jews have always taken issue with the entire concept.
From “Stage-Land: Curious Habits and Customs of its Inhabitants” described by Jerome K Jerome with drawings by J Bernard Partridge. Published by Chatto & Windus, London, in 1890. The book is an entertaining account of the types of characters to be found upon the theatre stage and this shifty-looking individual is the ‘stage villain’. Of course, you would know that from his immaculate appearance and the fact that he is always smoking a cigarette. Things which would never happen in real life, naturally. And he does have a distressing tendency to get knocked down by the hero fairly regularly. Sad, really.

How to Be a British Villain

In classic British detective stories, villains might be atavistic monsters, foreign menaces, or conniving professionals—all tied to aristocrats’ anxieties.
A group of children, among them are some dressed in Highland regalia with others wearing sailor suits, during League of Nations Rally in Hyde Park London, England, June 1921. The children, all of Hampstead, hold small signs reading 'Peace' and 'No War' and are gathered before a large banner reading 'We Revel in Peace'.

Teaching Peace Between the Wars

In the years between the world wars, the League of Nations attempted to change how history was taught to emphasize commonalities across national lines.
Serrakunda market, The Gambia

When “Traditional” Religion Shakes Up Gender Roles

In The Gambia, adherents of the Tablighi Jama‘at movement believe in the segregation of men and women, which often affects gender roles in unexpected ways.
Liberia and the Centennial exhibition, 1876

Building a New Virginia in Liberia

Black American voluntary migrants to Liberia were eager to embrace their African roots, but their vision for the country was very much an American one.
Orpheus by George de Forest Brush, 1890

Francis Bacon’s Fables of Life Extension

In his retellings of ancient myths, Bacon called for research to extend human lifespans, but only if those longer lives were spent in the pursuit of knowledge.
Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett, 2009

New Atheism and the Trouble with Literalism

Gaining strength in the early 2000s, the New Atheism movement was fueled by a fear of Christian fundamentalism and a belief that secularism was under attack.
Elvis Presley singing on stage with Bill Block, circa 1950s.

How Pentecostalism Shaped Rock ’n’ Roll

Early rock and roll performers, including Little Richard and Elvis, were influenced by the sounds and tropes of Pentecostal worship services.