The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Reads tagged with “history”

Why Writers Write: George Orwell on the Four Universal Motives for Creative Work
Why Writers Write: George Orwell on the Four Universal Motives for Creative Work

“All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery.”

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What Is Art? Favorite Famous Definitions, from Antiquity to Today
What Is Art? Favorite Famous Definitions, from Antiquity to Today

“Art is not a thing — it is a way.”

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A Brief History of Alchemy, Pseudoscience & Transmutations, from Ancient China to Craig Venter
A Brief History of Alchemy, Pseudoscience & Transmutations, from Ancient China to Craig Venter

What Richard Nixon has to do with cinnabar and diamonds.

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The Cultural History and Adaptive Function of Boredom
The Cultural History and Adaptive Function of Boredom

What Madame Bovary has to do with MRI and rock’n’roll.

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Fatherly Advice from Famous Dads
Fatherly Advice from Famous Dads

“The secret of success is concentrating interest in life… interest in the small things of nature… In other words to be fully awake to everything.”

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Alan Turing: Church, State, and the Tragedy of Gender-Defiant Genius
Alan Turing: Church, State, and the Tragedy of Gender-Defiant Genius

On the man who was caught between the past and the future in clothes a size too small, and profoundly changed our lives anyway.

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Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace: Tracing the Evolution of Women’s Rights in a Victorian Lady’s Journals
Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace: Tracing the Evolution of Women’s Rights in a Victorian Lady’s Journals

How the most private of frontiers became a public front for the gender dialogue.

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Henri Matisse’s Rare 1935 Etchings for James Joyce’s <em>Ulysses</em>
Henri Matisse’s Rare 1935 Etchings for James Joyce’s Ulysses

A 22-karat creative cross-pollination.

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18-Year-Old Sylvia Plath on Loving Everybody and Living with Curiosity
18-Year-Old Sylvia Plath on Loving Everybody and Living with Curiosity

“Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me.”

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Sylvia Plath’s Drawings
Sylvia Plath’s Drawings

“The pleasure of odds and ends,” in pen, ink, and literary history.

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