When Margaret Thatcher Refused to Jump
Douglas Murray at The Free Press: Welcome to Douglas Murray’s column, Things Worth Remembering, in which he presents great speeches from famous orators we should commit to heart. To listen
A Brief History of Failed Attempts at Human Flight
Joe Fassler at Lit Hub: Years ago, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, I found myself writing about flight. It started as just a few paragraphs, a bit of
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The Women Who Styled the French Revolution
Lucy Moore at Literary Review: After they were released from prison in Paris in the late autumn of 1794, both having narrowly escaped the guillotine, new bosom friends Rose de
A United States of Europe
Fernanda Gallo at Aeon: By 1941, as most European states were under the yoke of authoritarian or fascist regimes, and Nazi troops had just occupied France and were moving towards
Kabab
A WhatsApp Share: The Ottoman Empire’s soldiers were given meat loaves and spices by their wives before they step out to fight battles. These soldiers would cut them into very
The Place of Revenge in Jewish Culture
Shachar Pinsker at Aeon: Since 7 October 2023, nekama (‘vengeance’ or ‘revenge’ in Hebrew) has emerged as one of the key words in Israeli public life. We’ve heard discussion of
A Toxic Substance Found in Beethoven’s Hair May Solve an Enduring Mystery
For 200 years, Ludwig van Beethoven’s deafness has puzzled experts and fans. But a recent discovery of toxic substances in locks of the composer’s hair may finally solve the mystery.
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She Wrote ‘The History of White People.’ She Has a Lot More to Say.
Jennifer Szalai in The New York Times: As the historian Nell Irvin Painter has learned over the course of her eight decades on this earth, inspiration can come from some unlikely
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Harry Truman’s Train Ride
Our Govt. is made up of the people. You are the Govt. I am only your hired servant. I am the Chief Executive of the greatest nation in the world,
Future Pandemics Will Have the Same Human Causes as Ancient Outbreaks
Lessons from anthropology can help prevent them. Ron Barrett in The Conversation: The last pandemic was bad, but COVID-19 is only one of many infectious diseases that emerged since the
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Fareed Zakaria and Our Tumultuous World
Anita Jain in the Washington Times: In his latest book, Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present, Fareed Zakaria proffers his own 21st-century spin on storied historian Eric Hobsbawm’s
Did the Occult Influence Karl Marx and Early Communism?
Is spiritualism and materialism paradoxical? Can they coexist? Is the inference that occult is akin to or similar to spiritualism a valid argument? The groupthink that “all-round and harmoniously developed
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