Behind the Beauty of Orchids, Centuries of Violence
Following orchids in The Farming of Bones, a novel by Edwidge Danticat, exposes tangled webs of care, violence, and the lasting power of the colonial imagination.
Tagged: History
A Firsthand Account of Finding Nature on a U.S. Military Base
We need to expand our ideas of nature to include the battlefield. A historian explains why we should view soldiers’ daily lives as part of the natural world.
Thoreau, Now More than Ever: A Conversation with Laura Dassow Walls and Daegan Miller
Are there better ethics than hope? Two scholars with new books about the author of Walden reflect on Henry David Thoreau’s environmental ethic, flirtations with despair, and anarchist politics.
Olympic Do-Over: How Olympic Redevelopment Erased South Korea’s Past, Twice
Three decades after the 1988 Seoul Olympics, what lessons has the South Korean government learned about redevelopment and the Olympic Games?
The Tangled Roots of U.S. Imperialism and Biodiversity Science: A Conversation with Megan Raby
What does the scientific study of biological diversity have to do with the history of U.S. imperialism in the Caribbean? Just about everything, says the author of a new book on American field stations in the tropics.
How a $750 Down Jacket is Dividing College Campuses
When students critique outdoor fashion on campus, their views reveal gendered, ethnic, and regional stereotypes at play in the local meaning of international brands.
Making the Nation in the Gilded Age: A Conversation with Richard White
To be outside the “home” was a dangerous place to be in Gilded Age America. Richard White tells the story of how the modern nation reluctantly came into being alongside the environmental crisis of the late nineteenth century.
How Canada’s Scientists Mapped the Arctic North and Weathered the Cold War
In the 1940s and 1950s, atmospheric studies of Canada’s Arctic North were defined by technological failure. Edward Jones-Imhotep tells the story of the Cold War from a new vantage point—that of an “unreliable nation.”
The Immigrants Who Supplied the Smithsonian’s Fish Collection
The Smithsonian’s fish collection preserves not just specimens but the labor and knowledge of immigrant fishermen on the California coast.
When We Repealed Daylight Saving Time
In 1922, 16 states and 137 cities followed Daylight Saving Time—and the rest of the country did not. Repealing Daylight Saving Time only made the map of national temporal borders more complex, causing heartbreak and confusion at the border.
