By Jack Martinez – War! What is it Good For? Conflict and the Progress of Civilization from Primates to Robots Ian Morris Farrar, Straus and Giroux (April 15, 2014) 512 pages In his recent book, War! What is it Good For?, Ian Morris writes, “War has made the planet peaceful […]
By Catherine Clover – By its definition, the Beaux Arts movement in architecture combined the classical proportions of the Greco–Roman period with the Neo-Classical decorative elements popularized in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Of the many buildings that fall into this category of architecture, two prominent international opera houses come […]
By Douglas McElwain – Inca measurements are systematic as they apply to architecture and quipu knot structures. This article suggests a relationship between three seemingly disparate elements of Inca culture; stone walls, distance units of measure, and quipu (surviving string knot artifacts). Walls The Inca of Peruvian South America lived […]
Orestes Going After His Mother Clytemnestra to Kill Her, 5th c. BCE Red-Figure vase, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston By Walter Borden, M.D. Clytemnestra: “But blood of man once spilled, Once at his feet shed forth, and darkening the plain, Nor chant nor charm can call it back again. So Zeus […]
By Catherine Clover – “Remember gentlemen, it’s not just France we are fighting for, it’s champagne!” – Winston Churchill, WWII As the year 2014 comes to a close, it is a most fitting time to reflect upon the year in review and prepare resolutions for the year ahead. After meeting […]
By Patrick Hunt – The Atrahasis Flood Tablet I first saw in Irving Finkel’s office at the British Museum a few years ago before this book was published seemed much like many others in the museum galleries, a cuneiform clay tablet one could easily hold in a hand. But this […]
By Andrea M. Gáldy – Das Konstanzer Konzil. Weltereignis des Mittelalters 1414-1418. Grosse Landesausstellung 2014 im Konzilgebäude Konstanz (27. April – 21. September 2014), organised by the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe. www.konstanzerkonzil2014.de Karl-Heinz Braun, Mathias Herweg, Hans W. Hubert, Joachim Schneider und Thomas Zotz, eds. Das Konstanzer Konzil. Catalogue and volume […]
By Catherine Clover – From the air, the Irrawaddy River stretches like a golden snake across the landscape all the way to the horizon in the late daylight. My journey to Bagan started from Bangkok with a pre-dawn flight to Yangon. After a brief stop for breakfast at the historic […]
By Andrea M. Gáldy – The Hanoverians on Britain’s Throne 1714-1837. A series of exhibitions at Schloss Herrenhausen and other venues, Hanover and Lower Saxony, 17 May to 5 October 2014, www.royals-aus-hannover.de Ralf Bormann, “The Art Collection of Count Johann Ludwig von Wallmoden-Gimborn”, in Katja Lembke (ed.), The Hanoverians […]
By Catherine Clover – Spring Morning In the hut in the mountains one is free the live-long day A clump of bamboos leaning o’er screens from cold mountain air Green grows the grass and the sky reels in joy, Late lingers the dew in the cups of scarlet flowers The man alone […]