The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History turns 150 this year, and to celebrate, we spoke with Richard Conniff, author of House of Lost Worlds, about some of the fascinating stories from the museum’s long history. Yale University Press: Why should we care about natural history museums? Richard Conniff: The business
Stephen Long— It can seem like a long wait for Spring to replace the browns and grays of the woods with tints of green. But this time of year has its benefits. Before lush growth turns the woods into a maze of green, we have a chance at an unobstructed
James Q. Whitman— Over the past few years there has been a growing sense of crisis in American criminal justice–a sense on both the right and the left that our punishment practices have spun out of control. The Koch brothers have been collaborating with the Obama administration in the effort
Joel E. Dimsdale— Seventy years ago the international military tribunal at Nuremberg sentenced Julius Streicher to death for incitement of violence. It was one of the court’s most controversial judgments. Streicher was so loathsome that the Nazi party confined him to house arrest in 1940. Thus, it was hard to
Geoff Wisner— After graduating from Harvard College in 1837, Henry David Thoreau returned to the village of Concord, where he taught school with his older brother John. At least once a week the Thoreau brothers took the students out for a walk or a boating excursion. On one of these
Marion L. Soards— In the course of a conversation about religion, it would not be surprising to hear someone refer to the New Testament, meaning by that phrase to name the portion of the Christian Bible that is regarded as sacred Scripture by many people and that was written originally
Chris Woolgar– Chocolate eggs, simnel cake and a return to those things we have given up for Lent? There are resonances in all these to medieval foods. While there may have been no chocolate, Easter was marked in the countryside by the eggs the peasants brought to their lords, a
Markus Rathey— We listen to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Passions in strange isolation. Originally composed for the Lutheran liturgy in Leipzig, Germany, these magnificent pieces were embedded into a liturgical framework, which created its own references and its own meaning. During the season of Lent (forty-four days before Good Friday), concerted
Tarek Osman— In 1801, the rulers of Tripoli, in today’s Libya, declared war on the US, after the republic had attacked North African corsairs who had repeatedly pirated American ships in the western Mediterranean. American politicians were not particularly worried about the impact of the Libyan threat on their republic,
Jonathan H. Ebel— “I felt that I was in the military in the true sense because I dealt with those people.” —Donald J. Trump Every four years, presidential election cycles give Americans an opportunity to witness and to participate in sustained, often spectacular displays of civil religion. Campaign