Nathaniel Deutsch and Michael Casper— When the Yiddish-language Hasidic online chat forum Kave Shtibel (Coffee House) began a thread about our book, A Fortress in Brooklyn, less than two weeks after it was published in May, we were pleased but not surprised. The extensive Hasidic print culture that traditionally included
Matthew Rose— What comes after liberalism? We know what came before it: oppression, ignorance, violence, and superstition. The myth of our political origins is the story of how we learned to build societies on the values of freedom and equality, rather than the accidents of birth and the cruelties of
Fred R. Shapiro— The New Yale Book of Quotations uses pioneering research methods to trace famous quotations to their true origins. In particular, extensive searching of online historical books and newspapers has been employed to improve upon our knowledge of quotation provenances and histories. One result of these investigations has been
Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis— The drive south across the Detroit River from the U.S. city of the same name to the Canadian city of Windsor only takes about twenty minutes. For nearly a century, the big three American automakers have exploited this proximity by operating plants in both
Henry Kamen— Among the most serious environmental issues in preindustrial Europe was that of the disappearance of forests, which had at one time covered the greater part of the land surface. Already in medieval times there were protests against the destruction of forest land in order to create more arable
Mark Leopold— The question of exactly when Idi Amin joined the British Army, like the date of his birth, has been the subject of some disagreement and dispute. Even the British government later had problems ascertaining when he joined up, and whether he had fought in the Second World War.
Sumana Roy— In How I Became a Tree, I was looking for people who had wanted to become or live like a tree. Since then, I’ve been trying to speculate in the opposite direction – what might it mean for plant life to live in the human social world? How I Became
Michael P. Winship— In late 1535, 300-year-old Cleeve Abbey’s seventeen Cistercian monks received an emissary of King Henry VIII, the lawyer John Tregonwell. Like the rest of the monks, John Hooper, an Oxford University graduate in his late thirties, must have wondered why Tregonwell was really there. Was it because
Nicholas Orme— This is a scene from a fifteenth-century stained-glass window at Doddiscombsleigh: a country church in Devon, in the south-west of England. It shows what would have been a familiar event. A baby is brought to church to be baptized. The ceremony takes place at a font: a stone
Jan Lucassen— One of the anomalies of our times is the urgent demand for laboring bodies, alongside the denial of their humanity. Think of severe immigration restrictions in Japan, Europe, the USA, and Australia and inequalities in the Gulf States. In the light of a quickly ageing population and rising