Skip to content
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.

Terror Antiquus by L.Bakst, 1908
Politics & History

Islands of the Imagination

A short history of islands as sites of political escape and reinvention, from the myth of Atlantis to modern seasteading.
1856 Republican candidate John C. Frémont is portrayed as the champion of a motley array of radicals and reformers.
Politics & History

The Revolutionary Beginnings of the Republican Party

Popular resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law and “Slave Power” helped forge a new electoral force.
People hold Antifa flags at Trump Tower to counter protest the "White Lives Matter" march and rally on April 11, 2021 in New York City.
Politics & Government

The Real Antifa

Scholars find Antifa groups are small, decentralized, and largely defensive, challenging common political and media portrayals.
Covers of Barcelona, the satirical Argentinian magazine
Politics & History

When Satirical Magazines Confront Real Crises

In Chile and Argentina, satirical publications used humor to expose political crises overlooked by the mainstream press.
At the Mass, 1872,, by Francesco Gioli
Education & Society

A Christian Case for Gossip

When silence allows harm to continue, warning others may become a difficult but necessary moral choice.
Mughal ruler Humayun defeating the Afghans before reconquering India, folio from an Akbar-nama (Book of Akbar) of Abu’l Fazl, ca. 1590
Politics & History

How Horses Shaped the Mughal Empire

The quest for powerful horses reshaped trade and diplomacy across early modern South Asia.
A woman receiving equine-assisted therapy at Spirit Horse Ranch near Kula, Hawaii.
Education & Society

Equine-Assisted Therapy: But What Do the Horses Think?

An emerging critique examines the moral and cultural assumptions behind horse-based interventions.
Experimental color reconstructions of the marble statue of a Greek Muse in the Frankfurt Liebieghaus
Art & Art History

The Trouble with Authentic Ancient Statues

Scientific analysis has restored the colors of ancient Greek statues. Why does seeing them restored still feel so wrong?
Poster for Hamers bicycles, depicting six cyclists in a Dutch landscape.
Science & Technology

Bicycling Into the Future

Across centuries, bicycles have embodied hopes for speed, freedom, efficiency, and survival.
Isaac Sears addressing the mob
Politics & History

When Profit Met Protest in Colonial New York

Economic self-interest shaped how New Yorkers responded to British taxes and imperial crackdowns.
An illustration of a fossilized claw from Megalonyx Jeffersonii, a giant ground sloth, found in a cave in Greenbriar County, West Virginia.
Natural Science

Jefferson’s Fossils

What can Thomas Jefferson’s mistaken ideas about fossils tell us about science and belief in the early United States?
Fashion plate from an 1869 issue of The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine, surrounded by an 1861 color wheel by Michel Chevreul.
Politics & History

The Nineteenth-Century Science of Fashion

Victorian-era color theory moved from labs and studios into women’s magazines—and into everyday decisions about dress.
The Sacrifice of Isaac by Francesco Guardi, 1750s
Education & Society

A History of Existential Anxiety

From medieval theology to modern philosophy, dread has long been a guide for living ethically.
A bridge spanning a river collapses beneath the passage of a train, in a scene from the United Artists film 'The General', directed by and starring Buster Keaton, 1927
Arts & Culture

A History of Fakery on Film

Concerns about AI-made images have deep roots in the earliest years of filmmaking.
Portrait of Sir Banastre Tarleton by Joshua Reynolds, 1782
Politics & History

A Brief History of Men Showing Leg

The story of the modern suit begins with tight pants, as men’s legs became markers of class, civility, and sexuality.
An illustration from Christine de Pizan's The Book of the City of Ladies, 1405
Arts & Culture

Medieval Friendships: No Girls Allowed

Medieval European elites inherited the classical concept of friendship as something possible only for men. Christine de Pizan and Margery Kempe beg to differ.
Group of soldiers of mandatory military service at the Sergeant Cabral NCO School, Campo de Mayo, Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1977.
Politics & History

The Committed Officers of Argentina’s Dirty War

The viciousness of Argentina’s Dirty War resulted not only from orders from above but from ideological buy-in at the ground level.
An organ grinder stands on a sidewalk, playing music as a young girl dances in front of him, New York City, ca. 1935
Perspectives on Public Space

A War on Street Music in NYC

In the New Deal era, New York City banned street musicians, classifying them as beggars. Some New Yorkers fought back.
Two Members Of The Ku-Klux Klan in front of a cipher
Politics & History

A Secret Cipher for the KKK

How did the Ku Klux Klan spread across the South? Part of its journey depended on a code for secret correspondence.
Crowd On Mumbai City Street At Night
Perspectives on Public Space

In Praise of Loitering

A possible remedy to sexual harassment and assault in public spaces is to encourage more people of all kinds to spend time on the streets.
Children playing on a roundabout at a playground
Education & Society

Playing with Consciousness

Out-of-the-ordinary mental states are the goal of many religious rituals, but they’re also important in “playful” situations like kids’ games and fraternal hazing.
Sunday Morning in front of the Arch Street Meeting House, Philadelphia, 1811
Politics & History

Quakers Against Thanksgiving

In colonial America, government “thanksgivings” blurred faith and politics. For Quakers, rejecting them was an act of religious conviction.
"The trek of bums, tramps, single transients and undesirable indigents out of Los Angeles County because of police activity." Photographed by Dorothea Lange.
Politics & History

Los Angeles’s War on Tramps

In the 1880s, Los Angeles began a large-scale project of incarcerating unemployed men whom they viewed as a threat to the vigor of white America.
The Lackawanna Valley by George Inness, 1856
Art & Art History

The Art of Deforestation

Landscape paintings show how quickly American forests changed in the early nineteenth century—and the mixed feelings people had about that change.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yoga_classes_Soham_Yoga_.jpg
Education & Society

Should Yoga Be More Than Exercise?

How should Westerners studying modern postural yoga think about the religious and medical systems in which it developed?