History

Here’s to You, Joe DiMaggio, Where Have You Gone?

November 25 would be Joe DiMaggio’s ninety-seventh birthday. Such occasions are often celebrated with newspaper columns and commemorative events, but, strange as it may seem, in Jerome Charyn’s biography of the famous baseball player, DiMaggio’s birth is barely mentioned. Instead, in  Joe DiMaggio: The Long Vigil, from Yale University Press’s

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In Memoriam: Taha Muhammad Ali

On October 2, 2011, the world bid farewell to Palestinian poet, Taha Muhammad Ali, whose powerful works resonated with the tone of loss in the twentieth century. Born in 1931 in the Galilee village of Saffuriyya, itself lost in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Muhammad Ali was an unlikely picture of

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Lest We Forget: The Pilgrims’ Foul Bodies

Follow @yaleSCIbooks Sarah Underwood— I assume that this week, the halls of elementary schools across America have been decorated with Pilgrim men and women, whose shiny buckles and white aprons were cut cleanly from construction paper. I don’t remember ever drawing stains or smudges on my Pilgrims’ clothing as a

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Chanel Vocabulary of Style Quiz

Coco Chanel may not have invented elegance, or taste, or fashion, but the iconic designer was an absolute embodiment of these ideas. From department stores to sunglasses, billboard advertisements to suits to alluring, evocative fragrances, we are offered frequent, dazzling reminders of the timeless aesthetic vision of Chanel. Jérôme Gautier,

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That Famous Photograph: Elizabeth and Hazel Appear Again

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but if David Margolick’s new book Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock is any indication, a thousand is a low estimate. While the book itself only runs 320 pages, since its September release date, many pages more have been

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Eminent Biography: John Edwards on Mary I

On November 17, 1558, Queen Mary I of England died in the midst of her restoration of Catholicism. The glorious reign of her succeeding half-sister Elizabeth and the permanent installation of Protestantism as the religion of the Church of England has left this first reigning English queen with a certain

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Left Brain? Right Brain?

Follow @yaleSCIbooks Growing up, many of us were taught that our left brain was the source of reason and logic, while our right brain ruled over imagination and creativity. However, according to prominent psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, this is not the whole truth. In a video recently posted on the website

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A New Tour of Georgian London’s Fleet Street Shows Its Mixed Race American Side

Julie Flavell, author of When London Was Capital of America and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, takes you on a unique walk of Georgian London in the days when southern American visitors were bringing a mixed race look to the neighborhood. “What Dr Johnson Knew” Julie Flavell— “How is

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Happy Birthday, Georgia O’Keeffe: Free Excerpt of Letters to Stieglitz

Born November 15, 1887, Georgia O’Keeffe lived 98 years to become one of the most well known and celebrated American artists of the twentieth century. But to her husband Alfred Stieglitz, the man who had first brought her work to New York, she was “Sweetestheart”, and he was “Dearest Duck.”

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Audio Art: The Three Graces

Michal Raz-Russo, Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago and editor of the new book The Three Graces, has offered us a behind-the-scenes look at some of the detective work that went into this ambitious project, which investigates the cultural influences that shaped women’s

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