History/Archeology Archives - Attention to the Unseen

‘The Uprising’ shows how medieval people weren’t so obedient after all

From elsewhere — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 00:39:49 +0000

Woody Norman as King Richard II in ‘The Uprising,’ which tells the story of the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt, a major uprising across England that was triggered by high taxes and economic exploitation. Betina La Plante/Focus Features By Joëlle Rollo-Koster, University of Rhode Island For decades, I’ve been showing my medieval history students the “autonomous collective” scene from the 1975 film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” The clip is funny because it features two medieval peasants haranguing King Arthur while...

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9/11 triggered a ‘war on terror’ that was never winnable

From elsewhere — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 00:59:00 +0000

Robin Wright writes: Twenty-five years ago, President George W. Bush made a sweeping pledge shortly after Al Qaeda’s airborne hijackers slaughtered almost three thousand people, from more than a hundred countries, at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania, on September 11, 2001. “Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there,” he told a joint session of Congress, about the deadliest terrorist attack in history. “It will not end until every terrorist...

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Rope, twine and thread: Invisible technologies of the Stone Age

From elsewhere — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 00:58:42 +0000

Benjamin Taub writes: When an abstract-looking ivory artifact emerged from the Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany in 2015, archaeologists didn’t know quite what to make of it. Previously, this same cave had yielded what may be the world’s oldest musical flutes, as well as one of humanity’s earliest pieces of figurative art, the iconic Venus of Hohle Fels. At first glance, this strange new discovery — a 20-centimeter rod perforated with four small holes — seemed comparatively unspectacular. But...

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What it took to dismantle the most powerful corporation in the world

From elsewhere — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:15:34 +0000

William Dalrymple writes: At noon on Feb. 13, 1788, huge crowds gathered outside Parliament to witness members of the House of Lords process into Westminster Hall. They were there to impeach the man who ran much of India as the East India Company’s governor general of Bengal. This was the moment when the British state finally flexed its muscles to take on the greatest corporate oligarch of his day, the Elon Musk of 18th-century London. In addition to about 170...

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The plot to steal Venezuela’s oil is both vile and deeply stupid

From elsewhere — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 23:19:10 +0000

Paul Krugman writes: The United States has an ugly reputation in Latin America — a reputation that, I’m sorry to say, is mostly well deserved. Our government has a long track record of supporting dictators, assisting in the overthrow of democratic governments, and sometimes even sending in the Marines, often on behalf of American corporations trying to pillage other nations’ natural resources. Excluding the Trump II presidency, we have, I think, behaved better in the recent past. And this was...

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The revival of eugenics

From elsewhere — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 00:02:01 +0000

Dan Falk writes: The pseudoscience of eugenics, founded on the mistaken notion that nature envisions some “right” combination of genes, and that selective breeding can improve the human race, is making a comeback. While the heyday of eugenics was a century ago, the idea was never really forgotten. In the 19th century, the modern science of biology was in its infancy, but took a leap forward with the work of pioneering researchers like Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. But...

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U.S. military family schools will indoctrinate kids on Western civilization and Christianity

From elsewhere — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 00:05:42 +0000

The Associated Press reports: The Department of Defense is introducing a course centered on Western civilization and Christianity this fall in the schools it operates for military families, part of an effort by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to redirect the education system toward patriotic values and classical learning. The Department of Defense Education Activity operates about 160 schools across 11 countries and educates roughly 70,000 students who are children of active-duty military or civilian service members. Conservatives have eyed the...

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The shame of the American Jewish establishment

From elsewhere — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:52:06 +0000

Peter Beinart writes: At the end of 2015, soon after taking over as CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt brought the organization’s leadership to Georgia and Alabama. The journey constituted a kind of homage to the ADL’s role in the civil rights movement. In an essay about the trip, Greenblatt noted that in 1965, his predecessor, Benjamin Epstein, had summoned the ADL’s top staff to Selma, where they joined Martin Luther King Jr. in one of...

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The Smithsonian is under siege

From elsewhere — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 23:56:39 +0000

Philip Kennicott writes: Lost in this new effort [by Trump] to rewrite American history scrubbed of its invigorating, infuriating, thrilling complexity, is the emotional toll it takes on people who serve the institution. I am sorry that the scholars, curators, volunteers, security guards and the rest of the loyal staff will have to pass signs that demean the integrity of their work. The contents of the museum, the history it explicates, will prepare them for this attack, which is yet...

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Meet Anton Jäger, whose groundbreaking book is being devoured by the left

From elsewhere — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 00:43:00 +0000

Zoe Williams writes: ‘I am acutely conscious,” said Andy Burnham outside 10 Downing Street on Monday, “that I am the sixth person in the last 10 years to walk up this street.” It was good to hear him say it because, beneath all the cabinet gossip and rune-reading, there is a feeling of terror about the immediate future and also about ourselves, the electorate. Is this who we are now? Wildly enthusiastic one minute, seething the next; as passionate about...

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