Category Archives: History
Arts/Politics: The Atlantic Magazine – September 2024
Seventy Miles in Hell
The Darién Gap was once considered impassable. Now hundreds of thousands of migrants are risking treacherous terrain, violence, hunger, and disease to travel through the jungle to the United States.
Iranian Insiders Warn That Attacking Israel Is a Trap
Some say a big war will help the country’s enemies. But is anyone listening?
The Well-Off People Who Can’t Spend Money
Tightwads drag around a phantom limb of poverty, no matter what their bank account says.
History Today Magazine – August 2024 Preview
A Dangerous Game on the Jacobean Stage
For nine days Thomas Middleton’s A Game at Chess was the greatest box office phenomenon of the English Renaissance. Then a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Japan, the West and the Treaty of Versailles
At the outset of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference Japan enjoyed a seat at the top table, but the vexed issue of racial equality set it and its notional Western allies on different paths.
World Archaeology – Aug/Sept 2024 Preview
WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY (July 18, 2024): The latest issude features ‘Pompeii’ – The biggest dig in a generation; AI and Archaeology – Reconstructing ancient landscapes; Creatures of The Nile – What animals did for Ancient Egypt…
Pompeii: Unearthing Insula 10
The biggest dig at Pompeii in a generation is working to expose nearly an entire block of the ancient city. Archaeologists are making astonishing discoveries that shed powerful new light on life and death in the shadow of Vesuvius, as…
Creatures of the Nile: What animals did for ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt owed many debts to the creatures that lived in and beside the Nile. Both wild and domesticated animals offered an abundance of food, raw materials, and inspiration. But…
Artificial intelligence rethinks the past: How computers are reconstructing Etruscan and Roman landscapes
What can artificial intelligence bring to archaeology? Maurizio Forte introduces recent work dedicated to reconstructing ancient landscapes, and weighs some of the risks and rewards.
Autoarchaeology at Christiansborg Castle: Digging into ancestral connections to the transatlantic slave trade
The discovery of an unsuspected family link to Christiansborg Castle, Ghana, led to a project examining a forgotten aspect of the transatlantic slave trade. Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann introduces us…
Arts/History: Smithsonian Magazine – July/Aug 2024
A Buried Ancient Egyptian Port Reveals the Hidden Connections Between Distant Civilizations
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At the site of Berenike, in the desert sands along the Red Sea, archaeologists are uncovering wondrous new finds that challenge old ideas about the makings of the modern world
Galveston’s Texas-Size Plan to Stop the Next Big Storm
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In the wake of Hurricane Ike, engineers have been crafting a $34 billion plan to protect the city. Will it work when the next disaster arrives?
How Coffee Helped the Union Caffeinate Their Way to Victory in the Civil War
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The North’s fruitful partnership with Liberian farmers fueled a steady supply of an essential beverage
Culture: The American Scholar – Summer 2024
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR (June 4, 2024): The latest issue features ‘An Olympian for the Ages’ – Why George Eyser’s feats at the 1904 Games deserve to be celebrated today; Joshua Prager on a forgotten Olympian, Mickalene Thomas and the art of remixing, new poetry from Ange Mlinko, and more…
A Forgotten Turner Classic
Who was George Eyser, the one-legged German-American gymnast who astounded at the Olympic Games?
Femmes Fantastiques
Mickalene Thomas and the art of remixing
We Are the Borg
Is the convergence of human and machine really upon us?
The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI by Ray Kurzweil
In the fall of 2014, an MIT cognitive scientist named Tomaso Poggio predicted that humankind was at least 20 years away from building computers that could interpret images on their own. Doing so, declared Poggio, “would be one of the most intellectually challenging things … for a machine to do.” One month later, Google released an AI program that did exactly what he’d deemed impossible.Arts/History: Smithsonian Magazine – June 2024
Journey Into the Fiery Depths of Earth’s Youngest Caves
What Iceland’s volcanoes are revealing about early life on our planetand’s volcanoes are revealing about early life on our planetThis Doctor Pioneered Counting Calories a Century Ago, and We’re Still Dealing With the Consequences
When Lulu Hunt Peters brought Americans a new method for weighing their dinner options, she launched a century of diet fads that left us hungry for a better way to keep our bodies strong and healthy
New Books: ‘Children Of A Modest Star”(April 2024)
A clear-eyed and urgent vision for a new system of political governance to manage planetary issues and their local consequences.
Deadly viruses, climate-changing carbon molecules, and harmful pollutants cross the globe unimpeded by national borders. While the consequences of these flows range across scales, from the planetary to the local, the authority and resources to manage them are concentrated mainly at one level: the nation-state. This profound mismatch between the scale of planetary challenges and the institutions tasked with governing them is leading to cascading systemic failures.
Produced by Studio B. at the Berggruen Institute
Animation by Meysam Qaderi
Illustration by Akram Esmaili
Arts/History: Smithsonian Magazine – April/May 2024
Slugs in Paradise
Psychedelic hedgehogs, purple pineapples, living strawberries—welcome to the magical world of nudibranchs
Las Vegas Bets on the Future
As the Southwest dries, can a city notorious for excess find a way to survive with less and less water?
Greek Revival
Modern Athens savors its connections to antiquity—while reappraising its past
Collections: A Tour Of Dynastic Chinese Art
Behold the Leshantang collection, a testament to the eye of Tsai I-Ming, spanning the sweep of history from earliest dynasties to the modern era, this principle has guided the evolution of artistic expression.
Intellicurious 