History

the archivist January 23, 2026

Links of the Week, vol. 19 The following are links to interesting content we’ve read recently. If you would like to recommend a piece to share with our readers (no paywalled content, please), please use the contact form on our About page. ────────────── ● ────────────── The Longest Solar Eclipse for 100 Years Is Coming. Don’t […]

the archivist September 25, 2025

Links of the Week, vol. 17 The following are links to interesting content we’ve read recently. If you would like to recommend a piece to share with our readers (no paywalled content, please), please use the contact form on our About page. ────────────── ● ────────────── Ivan Bunin hated everyone… well, almost everyone. A very interesting […]

the archivist March 7, 2025

Excerpt from Red Fortress: History and Illusion in the Kremlin by Catherine Merridale “[The area of modern-day Russia and Ukraine] seemed to be a dangerous, exotic place, where fortunes waited for adventurers. Human slaves were one source of profit, for while Muslims and Christians were forbidden to enslave each other, the pagan Slavs were fair […]

the archivist October 4, 2024

Links of the Week, vol. 13 The following are links to interesting content we’ve read recently. If you would like to recommend a piece to share with our readers (no paywalled content, please), please use the contact form on our About page. ────────────── ● ────────────── Jonas Fredwall Karlsson’s Portraits of Rock Climbers and Adventurer Click […]

the archivist March 5, 2024

Clementine Churchill: A Life in Pictures Sonia Purnell From the publisher: Clementine Churchill: A Life in Pictures is a fully illustrated and abridged edition of Sonia Purnell’s acclaimed biography, First Lady, including over 100 stunning and rarely seen photographs. Without Winston Churchill’s inspiring leadership Britain could not have survived its darkest hour. Without his wife Clementine, however, he might […]

the archivist September 28, 2020

Links of the Week, vol. 5 The following are links to interesting content we’ve read recently. If you would like to recommend a piece to share with our readers (no paywalled content, please), please use the contact form on our About page. ────────────── ● ────────────── Tom Vanderbilt | Slate: The Single Most Important Object in […]

the archivist August 10, 2020

Individuals can be alienated from themselves only because there is something in them to alienate. The terrain of this violation is their authentic existence. Living the truth is thus woven directly into the texture of living a lie. It is the repressed alternative, the authentic aim to which living a lie is an inauthentic response. […]

the archivist August 7, 2020

Yale Needs Women: How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant Ann Gardiner Perkins Sourcebooks, 2019 Description “If Yale was going to keep its standing as one of the top two or three colleges in the nation, the availability of women was an amenity it could no longer do […]

the archivist August 7, 2020

Links of the Week, vol. 1 The following are links to interesting content we’ve read recently. If you would like to recommend a piece to share with our readers (no paywalled content, please), please use the contact form on our About page. ────────────── ● ────────────── Six Verbs That Make You Sound Weak (No Matter Your […]

the archivist July 17, 2020

The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the world, unite!” Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world? Is he genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of unity among the workers of the world? Is his enthusiasm so […]

the archivist May 16, 2017

In our Global Archive series, we get to know the world a little better, one country (or territory) at a time. Today’s installment: Russia! So let’s start at the very beginning. Modern Russia has origins in about the 8th century CE. Vikings (called Varangians by the Greeks) came to rule over the people known as […]

the archivist February 6, 2010

Written from a hospital bed in 1875, after the 26-year-old Henley had had his leg amputated as a result of tuberculosis of the bone. Originally untitled, Arthur Quiller-Couch bestowed the name “Invictus” (“Unvanquished”) when he included it in The Oxford Book of English Verse. This was the poem Nelson Mandela kept on a scrap of […]

the archivist January 24, 2008

While googling Illyria, Ohio, I came across this gem of a 19th century NY Times story: A SEVEN YEARS’ PURSUIT.; IN ABANDONED WIFE CAPTURES HER FAITHLESS HUSBAND. July 14, 1881, Wednesday Walter W. Winton, alias William Winthrop, son of the President of the Second National Bank of Scranton, Penn., was before Justice Bixby yesterday on a […]

the archivist January 18, 2007

Easter, 1916 W. B. Yeats I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done Of a […]