Category Think Piece
By Editor Spencer J. Weinreich In his magisterial history of the Reformation, Diarmaid MacCulloch wrote, “from one perspective, a century or more of turmoil in the Western Church from 1517 was a debate in the mind of long-dead Augustine.” MacCulloch… Continue Reading →
By guest contributor João Paulo Pimenta This post is a companion piece to Prof. Pimenta’s article in the Journal of the History of Ideas vol. 79, no. 1, “History of Concepts and the Historiography of the Independence of Brazil: A Preliminary Diagnosis.“… Continue Reading →
By guest contributor Timothy Young A garden is not a metaphor. A garden is actual. It is literal – in all the best senses of that word. It may carry meaning, but most importantly, it makes its own meaning. Much… Continue Reading →
By guest contributor Meg Foster Heroes are big business in popular culture. From ancient Greek and Roman legends, through to the popular Marvel comic figures of our own time, we have spent centuries on the lookout for exceptional men and… Continue Reading →
By Editor Spencer J. Weinreich It is seldom recalled that there were several “Great Plagues of London.” In scholarship and popular parlance alike, only the devastating epidemic of bubonic plague that struck the city in 1665 and lasted the better… Continue Reading →
By guest contributor Pamela C. Nogales C. Prompted by the experience of the second world war, historian Lewis Namier described the undemocratic birth of modern republics in his 1848: The Revolution of the Intellectuals (1944) and warned of the unintended consequences… Continue Reading →
By guest contributor Joshua S. Daugherty While exploring the pictorial depth displayed in traditional Tibetan scroll paintings known as thangkas, a rather abstract concept continually resurfaced: the notion of space. Early paintings appear shallow or flat, yet, in later centuries,… Continue Reading →
by Editor Sarah Claire Dunstan. One summer’s afternoon in 1923, a French barrister was enjoying a drink in a Parisian café. A man of broad experience and education, the barrister was also a medical doctor who had served in the… Continue Reading →
By Editor Derek Kane O’Leary American sculptor Bela Pratt imagined the above statue in 1916, but it was never built. In 1913, the Argentine congress had allotted $50,000 for a monument to their former President, renowned educator and man of… Continue Reading →
By guest contributor Trish Ross For the full companion article, see this Winter’s edition of the Journal of the History of Ideas. “Human nature is the only science of man; and yet has been hitherto the most neglected.” Thus David Hume simultaneously… Continue Reading →
