Paris in the Belle Époque
The most recent issue of Transversal, the International Journal for the Historiography of Science, is devoted to the Belle Époque. The phrase has entered the English lexicon, but identifying what…
The Best of All Possible Worlds
To live in the 17th century, it was still possible to be an expert in everything. The phrase used to describe Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is “universal genius.” He lived from…
A Dazzling Star Banned in Texas
Photo: Primo Levi In January 2025, the PM of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, announced a revamping the school curriculum by introducing Latin studies. The education minister, Giuseppe Valditara, also wants to…
Rome’s second Emperor: Tiberius
Augustus was a hard act to follow. Rome’s first Emperor is widely considered to be one of the finest absolute rulers of all time. Quite literally, no one could measure…
Early American History: NOT the Disney version
The mid-1990s was an era where the Disney corporation decided to release a couple of films to teach Americans about their early history. Pocahantas, in 1995, was a fairly successful…
FOR CHRISTMAS: The Messiah
Handel’s Messiah is now so closely associated with Christmas that the annual arrival of the holiday itself is naturally preceded by a performance of Handel’s most famous work. But it…
Socrates and Plato: Two New Handbooks
Since everything Socrates said, or is purported to have said, is contained in the works of Plato, distinguishing between the two has always been problematic. Thus, if you going to…
A PUFF OF EXPELLED AIR: Herder’s History of Mankind
“With the exception of the genesis of living beings, it is perhaps the greatest of terrestrial creation.” What was Johann Gottfied Herder referring to? The power of speech. “Everything human…
BLANK SPLENDOUR: Caught between Infinity and Finitude
““Never can there be anything more between us,” Lady Grace said passionately to Lord John, as she rebuffed his marriage proposal. “Never, no, never!” Aghast and defeated, he sank after…
Deep Time and Poems of the Highest Antiquity
What is deep time? Author Noah Heringman (Prof of English at the Univ. of Missouri) describes it in setting out the main argument of his book: “the history of deep…