50 Years Before Hilary Clinton: Indira Gandhi

Fifty years ago, on January 24, 1966, Indira Gandhi was sworn into office as India’s third prime minister.  She was not the first elected female head of state–that honor goes to Sirivamo Bandaraniake of Sri Lanka.  But she was the first woman elected to her country’s highest position who played a visible role on the…

Read More

Two Poets, Eight Centuries, One Poetic Masterpiece

Save Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is one of those books that some scholars love to be snotty about. Literary critics of a certain stamp dismiss it as bad poetry, apparently on the grounds that people love it who don’t otherwise read poetry.* Persian linguists rightly point out that Fitzgerald’s translation…

Read More

Sticks and Stones and Mammoth Bones

I am once again writing a book on a short deadline.  Unlike Heroines of Mercy Street,  it is not a book that the Marginalia will have any interest in.  My friends and family will feel no need to buy  or read it.*  I won’t post the cover here.**  There will be no interviews, guest posts,…

Read More