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
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 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
“Shall I receive the gift?” “Shall I be reconciled with my son?” “Shall I be poisoned?” These questions were all found in an oracle book created in the late third century B.C., as part of an exhaustive numbered list of queries one might pose. Their answers could be found by
King Solomon is famous for using his wisdom to mediate weighty conflicts. Yet, in his new biography of the Biblical figure, Solomon: The Lure of Wisdom, Steven Weitzman makes it clear that Solomon’s knowledge extended to a wide variety of areas: some Jamaicans credit the king with the discovery of
Craig Harline knows that history can be boring. He regrets the way in which many historians, himself included, often “write only for each other, in our special language” or “choose to write about subjects that are not exactly obvious in their relevance.” Accordingly, Harline’s Conversions: Two Family Stories from the