What We’re Reading 2023
Enjoy a fresh batch of year-end book reports from all of the readers, writers, and editors at JSTOR Daily!
Banning Christmas Dinner
Poor laws passed in Great Britain in the 1830s reversed a centuries-old tradition to forbid workhouses from serving roast beef and plum pudding at Christmas.
Ulysses Obscenity Decision: Annotated
In December 1933, Judge John Woolsey issued what would become one of the best known legal decisions on obscenity in United States history.
The Learning Labs of Sailing Ships
Taking a ship from Europe to the Americas in the early 1500s meant entering a world of cutting-edge applied technology and the mixing of social classes.
Shortcomings Shows the Loneliness of Refusing to “See” Race
Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel forces the reader to surveil the world through the eyes of its protagonist, Japanese American theater manager Ben Tanaka.
The Zulu Prince Scam
In the 1890s, self-proclaimed Zulu princes toured the United States, performing a con game on Americans eager to know Africa and Christianize its peoples.
Mary Taylor, Charlotte Brontë’s Cool Friend
An independent traveler and business owner, Taylor inspired many of Brontë's own enterprises, including her relocation to Brussels.
The Tricky Politics of Swedish Folk Music
In the early twentieth century, folk music in Sweden was connected with right-wing nationalists, leaving a complicated inheritance for today’s music fans.
The Great Arms Bazaar of the Nineteenth Century
In the late nineteenth century, fed by the disintegration of the Ottoman empire, the European arms race created a global military surplus.