history
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We’d All Be Better Off With Napoleon
On the bicentennial of the Battle of Waterloo, Andrew Roberts argues that we’d all be better off with a little more Napoleon: A vast amount of literature has explored why Napoleon fought such an unimaginative, error-prone battle at Waterloo. Hundreds…
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Frank Norris’s Early Cinematic Style
At The Public Domain Review, Henry Giardina examines how the then-recent invention of motion picture influenced Frank Norris’s novel McTeague and the development of naturalism.
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Paradise Lost and Scurvy Found
Sudden sounds, such as the report of a musket or a cannon, were well known to kill scorbutic sailors. Even pleasant stimuli such as a drink of fresh water, or a long-awaited taste of fruit, could provoke a seizure and…
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The Rumpus Interview with Erik Larson
Bestselling author Erik Larson talks about his new book, Dead Wake, his transition from journalism to history, and what, in his opinion, makes a first-rate nonfiction novel.
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Forgotten Failures
For The Public Domain Review, Dane Kennedy looks at two accounts of European expeditions that undermined the popular Victorian view of African exploration.
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Some Old Pick-Up Lines
I very much desire to make your acquaintance. If agreeable please return this card, appointing a time and place for interview, on the other side. Before Tinder or texting, people flirted the old-fashioned way: with escort cards. Messy Nessy Chic…
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The Vibrant History of Cuba
I feel like if you look at the history of Cuba, it’s always been a tumultuous one, even going back to Columbus, right? It always seems to have been a place that is sort of struggling to gain its footing…
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A Picture of Nothing
For the image to work…the viewer must not see the image for what it is – a black square. The viewer must understand the square as formlessness, and the black inside as neither a fullness nor an emptiness. This simple…
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How to Move Your Arms While You Talk
Slate looks at the 1857 book Sanders’ School Speaker: A Comprehensive Course of Instruction in the Principles of Oratory and its illustrations of what you should do with your arms when you talk.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: The Cultural Constellations of Agee and Smith
But who said a chronology had to be straightforward?
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A Comic History of Rome
The Public Domain Review takes a look at The Comic History of Rome, a book that satirized Roman history as well as Victorian society.
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Neanderthals in 3D
The Public Domain Review examines “the masterpiece” that is Marcellin Boule’s L’Homme Fossile de La Chapelle-aux-Saints, a book published in 1911 that includes early 3D images.