History

The figure of the rabbi, whether modern or ancient, seems far removed from the corporeal reality of a Roman public bathhouse—or at least that’s what we would assume. Yet, the vast body of writings, known collectively as Rabbinic Literature, paints an entirely different picture.

In 1346, a catastrophic plague beset Europe and its neighbours. The Black Death was a human tragedy that abruptly halved entire populations and caused untold suffering, but it also brought about a cultural and economic renewal on a scale never before witnessed.

Interwar Prague was an avant-garde hotbed, but the first exhibition of Czech art to take place at New York’s Museum of Modern Art was not devoted to Czech modernism.

Christian Nationalism’s threat to a healthy democracy is a popular topic these days, and with good reason. But few of the many excellent books and articles on the topic explain its origins.

Capitalism is a word used variously to describe an economic and social system, a modern form of political power, a dynamic mode of production, a stage in a world-historical process running from feudalism to communism, a western object of ideological allegiance, a durable form of inequality or, more simply, a thing.