In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, people doing early anthropology were very interested in climate and environmental conditions, but in very different ways from today. Early anthropologists connected geography to the nature of the people living there. Now, this...
On Sunday, Joe Biden’s granddaughter Naomi gave us an update on the presidential dogs Champ and Major: I love this piece by Matthew Dessem at Slate. He ranks all the presidential pets. I won’t tell you which pet comes in...
All of these points come from Ed Yong’s recent piece at The Atlantic: “How the Pandemic Defeated America.” We under-fund public health. Our health-care system is weak. Too much of what we do spend on healthcare is wasted. We have not...
Over at Pacific Standard, Kate Wheeling interviews Ben Goldfarb, the author of Eager: The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter. Here is Wheeling’s introduction to the interview: Since I first picked up Ben Goldfarb’s Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of...
Catherine McNeur is Assistant Professor of Environmental History and Public History at Portland State University. This interview is based on her new book, Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City (Harvard University Press, November 2014). JF: What led you to write...
This is only a few miles from where I grew up. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBhR5ToR7a8]
A little animal fun today. Click here for more.
What is a seal doing on the beach at Seaside Heights? (Notice that the boardwalk roller coaster is still in the ocean–a reminder of the devastation that hurricane Sandy brought to the shore)....
If you are an animal lover, you may want to check out the recent New York Times slide show, “Animals of the Civil War.”
Over at Religion in American History, Kelly Baker has a great post on the various responses to Harold Camping’s prediction that the rapture will take place on Saturday (May 21, 2011). Here is a taste: As someone with an ongoing […]
So wrote the Anglican bishop of Toronto when a priest at St. Peter’s Anglican Church gave holy communion to a dog. From the Toronto Star: St. Peter’s Anglican Church has long been known as an open and inclusive place. So...
“Hidden Histories,” a blog of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, has published a very entertaining post about 19th century and early 20th century zoo and circus animals that escaped from their handlers and wreaked havoc on cities and towns. Here...
Here is what a commentator on Rod Dreher’s Beliefnet blog had to say about a post he did yesterday on oil-soaked birds in the Gulf Coast. If you eat chicken and duck, you are NOT ENTITLED to bitch and screech […]
