Jennifer A. Quigley— People today don’t usually think of going to the bank, buying groceries, and signing a lease as religious acts, but in the ancient world, they very often were. While many people today tend to think of religion and the economy as distinct, in the ancient Greco-Roman world,
Sarah Koenig— On a hill in Southeast Washington, a 26-foot, 11-inch white marble obelisk inscribed with the word “Whitman” stands in striking relief against the Blue Mountains in the distance. The monument marks the mass grave of Protestant missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, along with eleven other white Americans who
Ashley L. Cohen— On a winter evening a man sits by his fireside, waiting for the serene quiet of his country retirement to be interrupted by the delivery of a London newspaper. So opens “The Winter Evening,” Book 4 of William Cowper’s long poem, The Task (1785). The set piece is, without
Eric Herschthal— It does not take much effort to find evidence of the ways science, medicine, and technology contribute to systemic racism. The Covid pandemic exposed how lack of access to quality medical care, coupled with the prevalence of Black people in low-paying front-line jobs, contributed to the pandemic’s disparate
Alison B. Powell— The smart city isn’t new. For at least the past two decades, new communication technologies have been imagined, marketed, and constructed to improve the function and experience of urban life. Let’s revisit the smart city of the late 1990s and early 2000s, when access to internet technologies
Jonathan Rose— Hanoverian Britain had its counterpart of the Bibliothèque bleue—chapbooks offering romances, fairy tales, and other fantastic stories. And a few of their readers, in memoirs, helpfully explained how they read them. As a boy, the poet John Clare (b. 1793) consumed 6d. (sixpence) romances of Cinderella and Jack and
Margarette Lincoln— So wrote John Donne, poet and priest, who described London in the 1600s as “a place full of danger and vanity and vice,” neatly encapsulating its horror and allure. The contradictions of London life, its mansions and hovels, its opportunities and epidemics, and the annual influx of migrant
Emily Cockayne— Marginal foodstuffs were eaten in dearth years when regular supplies dwindled. There were fewer opportunities for hedgerow foraging, mushroom picking and rabbiting in the cities than there were in the countryside. Proverbs hint at the desperation of the hungry: Hunger makes hard bones sweet beans. All’s good in
Lee Jackson— The emergence of the ‘gin palace’ in the 1830s, on the cusp of the Victorian era, seems a good place to start. These alluring drinking establishments, adorned with gaslight and gilding, were highly attractive public houses, catering to the common man. Their elaborate decor, however, provoked much earnest
Michael Hicks— It is half a millennium since Richard III (1483–5) was king. He is traditionally regarded as the last of England’s medieval monarchs – 14th and last of the great house of Plantagenet (1154–1485) and third of the Yorkist kings (1461–85). He terminated both dynasties. He has been bracketed