The Siege of Acre
April 14, 2020
John D. Hosler— Richard the Lionheart lowered his lance and drove it into the shoulder of his jousting opponent, the celebrated Ayyubid sultan Salāh al-Dīn (Saladin), knocking him and his… READ MORE
Category: History
“Mr. Miles His Negro No Hope of Life”
April 13, 2020
John G. Turner— One of the best parts of being a historian is spending time with hard-to-read sources. Admittedly, it’s terrible for the eyes, but we slow down and pay… READ MORE
Migration, Disease, and the Making of London Life
April 10, 2020
Panikos Panayi— On March 24, 2020, Luca Di Nicola, a nineteen-year-old Italian-born chef working in London, died at the North Middlesex Hospital, one of the many thousands of people falling… READ MORE
Hitler on History
April 9, 2020
Stephen G. Fritz— Life is normally characterized by irony, paradox, ambiguity, and ambivalence, but Adolf Hitler saw it with a startling (and frightening) clarity. Beginning early in his career as… READ MORE
Donald Trump and the Great Gatsby
April 8, 2020
Greil Marcus— The following advertisement appeared in Elite Traveler, Spring 2013: The Trump International Hotel & Tower New York pays homage to The Great Gatsby—the film adaptation of the iconic… READ MORE
Wordsworth in Self-Isolation
April 6, 2020
Jonathan Bate— During the great pandemic lockdown, people on Twitter have been “dreaming of other places”—beautiful places that they remember and of which they have treasured photographs. What they are… READ MORE
Greek Treasures in the Roman Empire
April 3, 2020
Tony Spawforth— Around 60 BC an ancient freighter foundered in the treacherous waters off the southeastern tip of mainland Greece. Two millennia later, fishermen happened upon remnants of its cargo… READ MORE
Nietzsche and Moses’s Stutter
April 1, 2020
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg— The tendency of meaning to burn out of language is a constant theme in Nietzsche’s writings. Here lies the paradox of the stammer: May your virtue be… READ MORE
Ben Hecht’s First Day
March 31, 2020
Adina Hoffman— Ben Hecht was always falling in love—though he never tumbled harder and faster into that ecstatic state than he did when he met Chicago. “The city of my… READ MORE
Trump, Sanders, and the Historical Mantle of “Populism”
March 26, 2020
Gregg Cantrell— In the current American election campaign, the headlines invoking “populism” just keep coming. “Trump and Sanders lead competing populist movements, reshaping American politics,” trumpets a typical piece from… READ MORE
From 9/11 to 9/11: The Widening of the Atlantic