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.
In 1968, an international group led by an Indian freedom fighter and a French spiritualist formed a utopian—and problematic—community called Auroville.
The medical profession saw nothing wrong with offering a cocaine-laced cola to white, middle-class consumers. Selling it to Black Americans was another matter.
In the early 1900s, a fictional “gentleman burglar” named Raffles fascinated British readers, reflecting popular ideas about crime, class, and justice.
In Brazil, Indigenous people and city-dwellers of all backgrounds mix various shamanic practices, including rituals imported from North America and elsewhere.
Before the Civil War, pro-slavery forces in the South—particularly the future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis—tried to extend their power westward.
The increased use of machines and the division of labor allowed for the production of standardized products. It also made it easier to fence stolen goods.
