Men stand in line outside a depression soup kitchen, 1931 / Public Domain Far less has been written about the origins of the Depression than about its results. By Dr. Robert S. McElvanie Elizabeth Chisholm Professor of Arts and Letters Millsaps College Far less has been written about the origins of the Depression than about[…]
Otto Wagner, Postal Savings Bank, Vienna, 1904-06 and 1910-12 “What is impractical can never be beautiful.” – Otto Wagner By Dr. Elizabeth Merrill / 11.28.2015 Historian of Art and Architecture A truly modern architecture In his 1896 manifesto Modern Architecture, Wagner expressed his ideal of practical and efficiently designed architecture. The purpose of beauty, he[…]
A Bolivian donkey of the 1850s. From Herndon and Gibbon, Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon (1854). (Jacqueline Moen) According to legend, Queen Victoria, informed of an early president’s angry insult to her ambassador, struck Bolivia off the map. But is it true? By Dr. Mike Dash / 06.04.2012 Historian and Author To be[…]
Boydell’s Collection of Prints illustrating Shakespeare’s works / British Library, Public Domain Rhetoric was a much-valued skill in Renaissance England, as it was in ancient Rome. By Dr. Kim Ballard / 03.15.2016 Linguist Rhetoric – the skilful use of language in order to move or persuade – was big business in Elizabethan England judging by[…]
Floats for the Kanda Festival, 1843 / Photo by Daderot, Edo-Tokyo Museum, Wikimedia Commons Looking at Japan’s growth and change from the Early Modern to Modern worlds. Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 08.17.2018 Historian Brewminate Editor-in-Chief The Edo Period The Edo period (1603-1868), when Japanese society was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate,[…]
Noria Waterwheel / Wikimedia Commons The fundamental processes of agriculture, pottery making, and cloth making, plus language, fire making, tools, and the wheel, all came out of the Stone Ages, before recorded history began. By Frances and Joseph Gies Medieval Historians NEARLY EVERYTHING THAT SIXTH-CENTURY Europe knew about technology came to it from Rome.[…]