The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “history”

March 28, 1941: Virginia Woolf’s Suicide Letter and Its Cruel Misinterpretation in the Media
March 28, 1941: Virginia Woolf’s Suicide Letter and Its Cruel Misinterpretation in the Media

A humbling reminder that self-righteousness is the enemy of compassion and judging another human being’s private struggle is a disgrace to our own humanity.

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Flannery O’Connor on Why the Grotesque Appeals to Us, Plus a Rare Recording of Her Reading “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
Flannery O’Connor on Why the Grotesque Appeals to Us, Plus a Rare Recording of Her Reading “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”

“There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored.”

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Marketing the Moon: How NASA Sold Space to Earth
Marketing the Moon: How NASA Sold Space to Earth

When the mission became the message and NASA undertook the monumental task of explaining rocket science to an audience looking to the stars.

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March 13, 1964: What the Kitty Genovese Murder Teaches Us About Empathy, Apathy, and Our Human Predicament
March 13, 1964: What the Kitty Genovese Murder Teaches Us About Empathy, Apathy, and Our Human Predicament

“How far away do you have to be to forgive yourself for not doing whatever is in your power to do?”

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Orgasm Without Release: Alan Watts Presages Our Modern Media Gluttony in 1951
Orgasm Without Release: Alan Watts Presages Our Modern Media Gluttony in 1951

A prescient admonition from the pioneer of Eastern philosophy in the West.

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Viktor Frankl on the Art of Presence, the Soul-Stretching Capacity of Suffering, and How to Persevere in Troubled Times
Viktor Frankl on the Art of Presence, the Soul-Stretching Capacity of Suffering, and How to Persevere in Troubled Times

“When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer… his unique opportunity lies in the way he bears his burden.”

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Happy Birthday, Standard Time: How the Railroads Gave Us Time Zones
Happy Birthday, Standard Time: How the Railroads Gave Us Time Zones

How the quest to prevent train collisions forever changed the global clock.

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How the Invention of the Alphabet Usurped Female Power in Society and Sparked the Rise of Patriarchy in Human Culture
How the Invention of the Alphabet Usurped Female Power in Society and Sparked the Rise of Patriarchy in Human Culture

A brief history of gender dynamics from page to screen.

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Mary Roach on the Science of Masturbation and the Outrageous Vintage Pseudoscientific Techniques for Controlling It
Mary Roach on the Science of Masturbation and the Outrageous Vintage Pseudoscientific Techniques for Controlling It

A cautionary tale of what happens when religious dogmatism attempts to subvert science.

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Stewart Brand’s Reading List: 76 Books to Sustain and Rebuild Humanity
Stewart Brand’s Reading List: 76 Books to Sustain and Rebuild Humanity

From Homer to home health, by way of Shakespeare, conceptual physics, and a gender-imbalance lament.

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