For last month’s contest inspired by the new illustrated edition of E.H. Gombrich’s A Little History of the World, we asked you to answer five questions, the last one of which read, “Who found enlightenment under a fig tree?” As many of you were able to tell us, the answer
Michelle Stein— I am familiar with the conflicting images and identities of shifting or presumably unchanging institutions. New York City may have been immortalized in the arts, and its landmarks might be recognized the world over, but underneath there is constant change. Whether the shuttering of one shop and
Sarah Underwood— When I interned at Yale University Press this summer, the other interns and I occasionally joked about how many more young women than men were participating in the program. We knew it was not from a lack of equal opportunity, and I guess we should not have been
We saw a shooting star in the sky on our late drive back from Hartford, Connecticut, on October 20th. Seeing such an astronomical marvel is special on any occasion, but this sighting was particularly poignant. We were returning from the Wadsworth Atheneum’s opening of an exhibition of photographs by Patti
After his acclaimed biographies of Livingstone and of Stanley, Tim Jeal explains what still draws him to Africa and the deeds of the great Victorian explorers, who feature in Explorers of the Nile, his definitive account of the contest to discover the Nile’s source. To be published November 1, this
If you were lucky enough to wander through Beijing’s 798 District, you would come face to face with some of the most fresh, daring work produced by China’s up-and-coming artists. In the past decade China’s contemporary art scene has exploded, captivating art collectors and galleries around the world. Ai Weiwei,
Follow @yaleSCIbooks Christopher Lane, Professor of English at Northwestern University and author of The Age of Doubt: Tracing the Roots of Our Religious Uncertainty writes on the misperception that Christianity and Darwinism are and have always been incompatible. His new book traces the thought of the Victorian age through scientific,
Follow @yaleSCIbooks In our age of calculators, computers, and the fifteenth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, most questions are pretty easy to answer. Why is the sky blue? What is the cube root of 1331? Who was Fredrick the Great of Prussia? Still, in some areas, uncertainty lingers—even though we
Follow @yaleSCIbooks Sarah Underwood— A thousand years from now, casual readers of history probably will not see too much distinction between the people of 1890 and those of 1990. I wonder if they will look at the giant stone angels of Victorian graves and assume that our generations wore black
Ivan Lett— Here in New Haven, the memory of La Amistad and its historic court trial pervades the memory of our coastline. Popular recreations of the slave ship’s story, such as the 1997 Spielberg film or the ship replica at Mystic Seaport, remind us of the horrors of slavery and