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Black and white headshot of author Matthew Wills

Matthew Wills

Matthew Wills has advanced degrees in library science and film studies and is lapsed in both fields. He has published in Poetry, Huffington Post, and Nature Conservancy Magazine, among other places, and blogs regularly about urban natural history at matthewwills.com.

From THEM!, 1954
Arts & Culture

Fear of an Insect Planet

"Big bug movies" of the 1950s have been interpreted as projections of nuclear anxieties. But what if they were about...actual fear of bugs?
Ascaris worms, a group of parasitic nematode worms, also known as small intestinal roundworms.
Health

How Archaeologists Use Parasites to Track Urbanization

Historical patterns of parasitic infection show up differently depending on the class status of a neighborhood.
Martin and Osa Johnson
Arts & Culture

How Two Kansans Invented the Safari Documentary

Martin and Osa Johnson were celebrities in their day, but their vision of Africa was way out of touch with reality.
Group portrait of European refugees saved by the Emergency Rescue Committee on board the Paul-Lemerle, a converted cargo ship sailing from Marseilles to Martinique
Politics & History

The World War II Escape Route from France to Martinique

After the fall of France to the Nazis in 1940, some refugees tried to make it out through the Caribbean.
A road sign at a wildlife refuge that warns the drivers of turtles crossing the road.
Plants & Animals

Road Density Threatens Turtle Populations

Roadkill may be inevitable, but turtles are especially vulnerable—particularly females, putting species survival at risk.
Image from a poster for safe sex awareness
Politics & History

Gay Bars and Gay Rights

One of the flash points in the LGBTQ+ movement was liquor licenses, which were the subject of important legal cases.
The cover of the July, 1964 issue of ONE Magazine
Politics & History

Patriotism and the LGBTQ+ Rights Movement

Charged with being "un-American" during the Cold War, activists appealed to American ideals in their quest for full citizenship.
The Killing of Sister George
Arts & Culture

Hollywood Goes to Its First Lesbian Bar and Can’t Stop Staring

The Killing of Sister George was the first Hollywood movie to depict a lesbian bar. Director Robert Aldrich was obsessed with its authenticity.
Boxes of tamale pie, tostadas and taco casserole with figurine
Politics & History

Who Invented the “Mexican” Food of the United States?

The debate over what counts as authentic Mexican food may be moot when there are 7,000 Taco Bells around the world.
A British soldier training in 1941
Politics & History

The Bayonet: What’s the Point?

According to one scholar, the military sees training in this obsolete weapon as helpful on the modern battlefield.
Nomadic ethnic Tibetan women stand amongst their Yak herd at a camp on July 27, 2015 on the Tibetan Plateau in Yushu County, Qinghai, China.
Plants & Animals

Yaks in Tibet

As China tried to expand into Tibet in the late 1930s, it looked to the yak as a way to "modernize" Tibetan culture.
Sophia Thoreau
Politics & History

Sophia Thoreau to the Rescue!

Who made sure Henry David Thoreau's works came out after his death? His sister.
The House of Tomorrow, artist rendering exterior view
Science & Technology

Solar Housing Is Actually Kind of Retro!

The domestic fuel scarcity of World War II led to innovation in home heating—especially passive solar technology.
Leonard Woolf
Arts & Culture

How Leonard Woolf Critiqued Bloomsbury from Within

A literary scholar argues that Leonard Woolf has been unfairly neglected—perhaps because his anti-imperialism implicated his friends.
Benin royal shrine head, between 15th century and 16th century
Art & Art History

The Benin Bronzes and the Cultural History of Museums

What an 1897 exhibition at the British Museum can tell us about how African artworks were perceived in an era of imperialism.
Attack and take of the Crête-à-Pierrot (4 - march 24, 1802). Original illustration by Auguste Raffet
Politics & History

Sergei Eisenstein and the Haitian Revolution

Why was the legendary Soviet filmmaker rebuffed in his vision of putting history's most consequential slave revolt on screen?
Photograph: A Russian soldier waves a flag while standing on a balcony overlooking a square, where military trucks gather, during the Battle of Stalingrad, World War II, and the cover of Life and Fate Source: Getty/Wikimedia Commons
Politics & History

How a Forbidden Russian Epic Finally Got Published

Soviet dissident Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate was "arrested" by the KGB in 1961. Here's how it finally saw the light of day.
A finger pressing a doorbell, circa 1950.
Science & Technology

When the Push Button Was New, People Were Freaked

The mundane interface between human and machine caused social anxiety in the late nineteenth century.
U.S.S. Pueblo, 1968
Politics & History

Can Thucydides Teach Us Why We Go to War?

A contemporary scholar uses the ancient Greek historian to explain the 1968 Pueblo Crisis in North Korea.
Lansquenets - mercenary soldiers under emperor Maximilian I, c. 1600. Lithograph, published in 1887.
Politics & History

Chivalric Romance, Meet Gunpowder Reality

The manly knight wouldn't have lasted a day in sixteenth-century combat. So why was he so popular as a literary figure at the time?
Thomas Mann
Politics & History

How Thomas Mann Turned against the German Right

The best-selling author supported the Kaiser during World War I. What made him change his mind about politics later?
Length of Brocaded Silk, Italy, 18th century
Art & Art History

Eighteenth-Century Spies in the European Silk Industry

Curious about the advancing wonders of the age, savants traveled abroad to gather trade secrets for their homeland.
Two people walking towards Los Angeles, 1937
Politics & History

How the LAPD Guarded California’s Borders in the 1930s

Working well outside their jurisdiction, the officers patrolled their state's borders against white migrants.
Ernest Hemingway at the Finca Vigia, Cuba 1946
Arts & Culture

Ernest Hemingway and Gender Fluidity

Despite his reputation for hypermasculinity, the author was fascinated by different forms of gender expression.
An illustration from the Bantam edition of Graham Greene's The Quiet American
Arts & Culture

When the CIA Was Everywhere—Except on Screen

Hollywood was just fine avoiding all portrayals of the Central Intelligence Agency for years after the agency's founding in 1947.

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