The Long Eighteenth Century
From the Archives: The Peasants Are Revolting
2017 is the hundredth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, commemorated in Big Fat History Books and innumerable posts by history bloggers. (I did my bit here and here.) There has been a certain somber tone to such commemorations, since the Revolution is tied in our historical memory with Stalinism, gulags in Siberia, the Cold War,…
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Tiny Bubbles…..
Right now I’m thinking about widows–not for personal reasons but in reference to The Book. I’ve been looking at the concept of the widow’s walk to power: think Corazon Aquino or Sirivamo Bandaraniake, who campaigned as the “weeping widow” to become the world’s first female prime minister in 1960 after the assassination of her husband.…
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The Unruly City
Looking over past blog posts, I realize that I’ve reviewed a number of books about cities.* That’s because cities fascinate me: physically and culturally. I love exploring the infrastructures, neighborhoods, markets, hidden corners and distinctive styles of a new city. And I love books where the city itself is a central part of the story.…
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