“Come, ye philosophers, who cry, ‘All’s well,’And contemplate this ruin of a world.Behold these shreds and cinders of your race… …Did fallen Lisbon deeper drink of viceThan London, Paris, or sunlit Madrid?” – Voltaire, On the Lisbon Disaster (1755) The Great Lisbon Earthquake and Tsunami of 1755 sent reverberations throughout European society. Leveling around 85% […]
Lisbon before the Great Earthquake Read More »
In that part of Africa, which lies under the Torrid Zone, there are Countries extremely fertile… and ‘tis the same as to what lies under it in America, so far as is yet known. – John Senex, New General Atlas, 1720. Sorry about the long delay (occasioned by computer troubles and the Thanksgiving break). Today
Mapping Nature in the ‘Age of Discovery’ Pt. I Read More »
Well, this has nothing to do with history, but I thought I’d share this photograph of a huge raccoon I found hanging from my living room ceiling just before dawn this morning! (Note, things are not usually such a mess in this room – the raccoon had been throwing stuff around.) People in premodern times
I found these beautiful and evocative photographs of India under British rule on a remarkable website created by a consortium of research libraries called the Digital South Asia Library. The photographs themselves appear to be from the British Library’s Oriental and Indian Office Collection. I’ve added the original captions or collection titles when they’ve been
Photographs of Imperial India Read More »
Dutch Brazil, which officially called itself ‘Nieuw Holland,’ was a short-lived (1630-1654) state in the north-east of Brazil that resulted from the Dutch Republic’s aggressive policy of territorial expansion at the expense of the Portuguese colonies in the first half of the seventeenth century — a policy that also led to the Dutch occupation of
Paintings from Dutch Brazil Read More »
“The study of simple drugs is a study so agreeable, and so exalted in its own nature, that it has been the pursuit of the first geniuses of all ages.” – Pierre Pomet, Histoire generale des drogues (Paris, 1684). “A book of high character was published in France at the conclusion of the seventeenth century,
"A Compleat History of Druggs." [Jan. 2011 Update] Read More »
As leader of the Tammany Hall political consortium at the turn of the twentieth century, Richard Croker (1843-1922) was once the most powerful man in New York City. He received bribes from numerous brothels, saloons and other businesses during an era of enormous growth for the city due to European immigration, and he oversaw criminal
Image of the Week 6: "New York’s New Solar System" Read More »
My apologies for the gap in posts recently – recently I’ve had to concentrate on my actual work a bit more. But I wanted to share two things: some extracts from the bizarrely detailed index of the seventeenth century buccaneer William Dampier‘s Voyages (1697) and two gorgeous images of the East Indies from the 1599
A Borgesian Index and Images of the Indies Read More »
This is the third in an occasional series of posts about my favorite ‘vanished’ civilizations (the first was on Carthage and the second was on the mysterious Tocharians). I put the word ‘vanish’ in scare quotes because in fact few if any civilizations truly disappear: they simply transmute. Ancient Carthage was destroyed as a state
Vanished Civilizations III: Trebizond Read More »
“[He] poured the water softly upon his head until the cloth was full, up to the mouth and nostrils, and somewhat higher, so that he could not draw breath but he must suck in all the water.” — A True Relation of the Unjust, Cruel and Barbarous Proceedings against the English at Amboyna (London,
Waterboarding in the Seventeenth Century Spice Islands Read More »