Mother’s—and Others’—Milk
Said to bestow strength and beauty, to purify body and soul, and to yield success and happiness, milk’s image is as adulterated as the liquid itself.
Getting Pickled With Joseph Stalin
The Soviet dictator was notorious for hosting drinking parties where vodka loosened the inhibitions of associates and got them to reveal their secrets.
On Harvests and Histories
Almanacs from the Civil War era reveal how two sides of an embattled nation used data from the natural world to legitimize their claims to statehood.
Cinchona: A Legacy of Extraction and Extirpation
The source of quinine, cinchona tells a story about the value placed on parts of plants and how that value can be extracted and distorted in support of empire.
The Indelible Lessons of Erasure
A Percival Everett fan weighs in on the novelist’s approach to racial satire and considers the translation of Erasure to the big screen in American Fiction.
Half Past Dementia
Drawing a clock has become a standard test of cognitive impairment, but there’s no consensus on who should do it or how.
A Tale of Two Visionaries
What roiled the mind of Nebraska poet John Neihardt with whom Black Elk, the iconic Lakota holy man, shared his story?
The Climate Canvasses of the Little Ice Age
Low Country artists of the late Renaissance and Early Baroque eras captured the happiness and hardships of snowy winters—an ever rarer phenomenon now.
How American Librarians Helped Defeat the Nazis
Recruited to the war effort thanks to their deft research skills and technological know-how, librarians used microforms to gather and share intelligence with Allied forces.
Scrub-a-Dub in a Medieval Tub
Contrary to popular misconceptions, Europeans in the Middle Ages took pains to keep themselves clean.