In a new book, Camille Laurens examines the life of the model for Degas’ masterpiece, “Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen.” But there’s still so much we don’t know.
History
Posted inStory
Queens of Infamy: Josephine Bonaparte, from Malmaison to More-Than-Monarch
In fraught games of power politics, sometimes the best revenge is not being exiled to die alone on an island in the South Atlantic.
Posted inBooks, Fiction, History, Profiles & Interviews, Science & Nature, Story
Namwali Serpell on Doing the Responsible Thing — Writing an Irresponsible Novel
“I joke that this is the great Zambian novel you didn’t know you were waiting for.”
Posted inStory
Queens of Infamy: Josephine Bonaparte, from Martinique to Merveilleuse
Even the Reign of Terror was no match for a determined young woman with a pug and a prophecy on her side.
Posted inFood, Highlight, History, Quotes
Welcome to Sinaloa, Home of Chiltepín
Your favorite Mexican shrimp dish isn’t about the shrimp at all: “People think the star of the dish is the shrimp, but really it’s the chile.”
Posted inBooks, Essays & Criticism, History, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story
America’s Post-Frontier Hangover
America binged on expansion, relying on land grabs as an engine of growth and a way to externalize racial hatred. Historian Greg Grandin asks, without a frontier, what can America be?
Posted inBooks, History, Nonfiction, Story, Travel
A Three-Day Expedition To Walk Across Paris Entirely Underground
Journalist Will Hunt, who made the crossing with a group of urban explorers, recounts being menaced by rainwater and rats — and meeting fellow subterranean wanderers along the way.
Posted inBooks, Crime, Essays & Criticism, History, Nonfiction, Story
Jill the Ripper
True crime’s massive gender gap (95% of murderers are male) isn’t really one that needs fixing. And yet, since the beginning, a steadfast minority of Ripperologists have argued that Jack was really Jill.
Posted inArts & Culture, History, Science & Nature, Story
The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Pearls
Born from irritation and intrusion, luminous and complex, surprisingly durable: pearls are rich with symbolism and saturated with pain.
Posted inNonfiction
Baring the Bones of the Lost Country: The Last Paleontologist in Venezuela
In light of recent events in crisis-ridden Venezuela, its last vertebrate paleontologist puts together key pieces of the baffling puzzle that the country has become in the past couple of decades.