2,684 words
Patrick Wyman
The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World
Grand Central Publishing, 2021
A phrase which originates with the alchemical writers of the late Middle Ages is a prediction which has probably come true at least once for any reader: “One book opens another.” A book which has an above-average chance of doing just that is The Cambridge Modern History. (more…)
Lived with for millennia, first climbed in 1865: the Matterhorn
Lived with for millennia, first climbed in 1865: the Matterhorn
2,657 words
“I was using the mountain to measure myself. The mountain is the means, the man is the end.” — Walter Bonatti (1930-2011)
People who climb mountains are like people who ride motorbikes or take illegal drugs. They tend to have a lot of friends who die young — or they die young themselves. (more…)
6,392 words
6,392 words
The idea that the norms implanted upon us by our families affect our personalities and our prospects in life is almost a truism. The idea that there is a strong relationship between the Western nuclear family and liberal modernity is no longer controversial, and so is the idea that different family types have existed across the world and that these types have played a significant role in the historical trajectories of the cultures of the world. Some are aware of the so-called “Hajnal line” proposed in 1965 by John Hajnal, (more…)