The Redemption of Saint Anthony
By Colin Dickey In the fall of 1849, Gustave Flaubert invited his two closest friends—Louis Bouilhet and Maxime du Camp—to hear a reading of what…
historical essay - Page 4
In Hollywood with Nathanael West
By Marion Meade Hollywood has served as a novelist’s muse for almost a century. The list of writers who found inspiration there includes the likes…
Slavery in North Africa—the Famous Story of Captain James Riley
By Robert C. Davis In 1817, the American sea captain, James Riley, published An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig “Commerce,” Wrecked…
The Founding Fathers Versus the Climate Change Skeptics
By Dr. Raphael Calel The United States has in recent years become a stronghold for climate change skepticism, especially since the country’s declaration in 2001…
What Makes Franz Liszt Still Important?
By Leon Botstein Marking anniversaries of the birth and death of historic figures, particularly in music, is somewhat akin to commemorating annually the date of…
The Tale of Beatrix Potter
By Frank Delaney Her appeal is so powerful that museums hold her in permanent exhibition—and some of them even commemorate her solely. Hollywood has trawled…
Mary Toft and Her Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbits
By Niki Russell In September 1726, news reached the court of King George I of the alleged birth of several rabbits to Mary Toft (1703-1763)…
Machiavelli the Comedian
By Christopher S. Celenza “Comedian,” admittedly, is not the first word you associate with Machiavelli—and “funny” is not a word normally applied to Lucretius. And…
Aspiring to a Higher Plane: Edwin Abbott Abbott
By Ian Stewart Edwin Abbott Abbott, who became Headmaster of the City of London School at the early age of 26, was renowned as a…
The Last Great Explorer
By Brook Wilensky-Lanford The quest to find the Garden of Eden sounds like an occupation that should have fallen by the wayside well before the…
Is Hillary Clinton Electable?
Hillary Rodham Clinton might become the first female President of the United States of America—formerly being the First Lady, a senator, and the Secretary of…
John L. Sullivan Fights America
By Christopher Klein A dense ocean of humanity lapped up to the doorstep of John L. Sullivan’s gilded liquor palace. Heads craned and tilted as…
Geronimo: The Warrior
Geronimo (1829-1909), whose given name was Goyahkla, sometimes spelled Goyathlay, is one of the most famous figures in the history of the American Indian resistance…
The Prehistory of Artificial Intelligence
How old are the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence? Many might trace their origins to the mid-twentieth century, and the work of people such…
Encounter at the Crossroads of Europe – the Fellowship of Zweig and Verhaeren
While still at school, Stefan Zweig had tried his hand at translating a number of French and Belgian poets, Verlaine, Mallarmé, and Baudelaire, but also…
The Mystery of Lewis Carrol
When Charles L. Dodgson was born in January 1832, his paternal aunt wrote a letter to his parents, welcoming the “dear little stranger” and begging…
The Science of Life and Death in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Far from the fantastic and improbable tale that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein now seems to us, the novel was declared by one reviewer upon publication to…
The Birth of the Illuminati Conspiracy
At the beginning of 1797, John Robison was a man with a solid and long-established reputation in the British scientific establishment. He had been Professor…
Sherlock Holmes, For King and Country
Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes saga has enjoyed—or in some cases, suffered—countless reinventions since its original publication from 1887 to 1927. The BBC’s current television version…
The Most Fascinating Technological Breakthroughs of 2015
If you watch science-fiction films produced in the 1970s or 1980s, you will most likely decide that that were naive and somewhat absurd in their…
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