The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “history”

Codex Seraphinianus: History’s Most Bizarre and Beautiful Encyclopedia, Brought Back to Life
Codex Seraphinianus: History’s Most Bizarre and Beautiful Encyclopedia, Brought Back to Life

“You see what you want to see. You might think it’s speaking to you, but it’s just your imagination.”

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Cicero’s Web: How Social Media Was Born in Ancient Rome
Cicero’s Web: How Social Media Was Born in Ancient Rome

How the dynamics of papyrus scrolls explain Facebook.

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Divine Fury: A Cultural History of Genius
Divine Fury: A Cultural History of Genius

“If we wish to appreciate the role that genius has played in the modern world, we must [remember] that genius is ultimately the product of the hopes and longings of ordinary people.”

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Duke Ellington’s Artistry and Artifice: How the Jazz Icon Engineered His Own Image
Duke Ellington’s Artistry and Artifice: How the Jazz Icon Engineered His Own Image

“Ellington [was] a combination of Sir Galahad, Scrooge, Don Quixote, and God knows what other saints and sinners that were apt to pop out of his ever-changing personality.”

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Inside the Rainbow: Gorgeous Vintage Russian Children’s Book Illustrations from the 1920s-1930s
Inside the Rainbow: Gorgeous Vintage Russian Children’s Book Illustrations from the 1920s-1930s

“A lovely primary-colored geometrical wonderland-light sparkling with every conceivable kind of wit and brilliance and fantasy and fun.”

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Thoreau on Not Finding a Publisher and What Success Really Means
Thoreau on Not Finding a Publisher and What Success Really Means

“Sitting beside the inert mass of my works, I take up my pen to-night to record what thought or experience I may have had, with as much satisfaction as ever.”

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Picasso’s Rare 1934 Etchings for a Racy Ancient Greek Comedy
Picasso’s Rare 1934 Etchings for a Racy Ancient Greek Comedy

Literary entrepreneurship, unorthodox anti-war advocacy, and a side of sex.

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Pioneering Anthropologist Margaret Mead’s Beautiful Love Letters to Her Soul Mate
Pioneering Anthropologist Margaret Mead’s Beautiful Love Letters to Her Soul Mate

“The thought of you now makes me a little unbearably happy.”

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Coleridge, Plagiarist
Coleridge, Plagiarist

How to walk the fine line between unconscious borrowing and deliberate theft.

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The Prescient Poem 10-Year-Old Anne Frank Penned in Her Schoolmate’s Friendship Book
The Prescient Poem 10-Year-Old Anne Frank Penned in Her Schoolmate’s Friendship Book

“For-get-me-not.”

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