Thirty years ago, the world lost a great literary mind—the Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. Today, Elizabeth Hyde Stevens revisits the financial conditions that produced this life of pure literature, finding unexpected hope in the darkest period of Borges’ forgotten past.
Search results
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Using the British Railway Mania of the 1840s to Explain the Beanie Baby Craze
Andrew Odlyzko, a mathematician and bubble expert, proposes a simpler theory explaining speculative panics in his study on the British Railway Mania of the 1840s. Odlyzko credits Railway Mania in part to a “collective hallucination,” an extreme form of groupthink wherein a significant chunk of society feverishly buys into a shared dream with no regard for the skeptics and […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Oregon’s Somewhat Secret, Racist Roots
Oregon’s natural beauty belies a nasty history. Slavery was never ratified, but the state made a point to exclude anyone who was Black or multiracial from living, working or owning property in its constitution. Matt Novak explains at Gizmodo…
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
Franklin, Reconsidered: An Essay by Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore revisits the legacy of Benjamin Franklin, who in his time was “the most accomplished and famous American who had ever lived.”
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction
The Walkable Multiverse According to Charles Jencks
On an abandoned mining site in Scotland, an architectural theorist attempts to bring the mysteries of the cosmos to life on Earth.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
‘I Would Prefer Not To’: The Origins of the White Collar Worker
Before the Civil War, the clerk was “a small but unusual phenomenon.” By the end of the 19th century, clerical workers were a social force to be reckoned with. This is the story of their rise.
Posted inBooks, Member Pick, Nonfiction
The Holy Junk Heap
Some 300,000 Jewish documents were hidden in a closet in Cairo for hundreds of years. They were discovered by the lady adventurer twins Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson and the legendary Rabbinical scholar Solomon Schechter. Here is their story.
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
The Walkable Multiverse According to Charles Jencks
On an abandoned mining site in Scotland, an architectural theorist attempts to bring the mysteries of the cosmos to life on Earth.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
Franklin, Reconsidered: An Essay by Jill Lepore
Jill Lepore revisits the legacy of Benjamin Franklin, who in his time was “the most accomplished and famous American who had ever lived.”
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
‘I Would Prefer Not To’: The Origins of the White Collar Worker
Before the Civil War, the clerk was “a small but unusual phenomenon.” By the end of the 19th century, clerical workers were a social force to be reckoned with. This is the story of their rise.
