By Andrea M. Gáldy – Two concurrent complementary exhibitions in Florence in 2015 have been dazzling and hugely aesthetically rewarding: Power and Pathos. Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World (Palazzo Strozzi, 14 March to 21 June 2015) and Small Great Bronzes. Greek, Roman and Etruscan Masterpieces (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze, […]
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 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 P. F. Sommerfeldt – Memoirs are by nature usually suspect; this one truly raises the bar. Here honesty is cherished and myopic self references are at a minimum. Especially when they are filled with rationalizations of bad behavior, railing curses against foes or aimed at generating sympathy for a […]
By Patrick Hunt – Every year for the past five years, after fieldwork in the Alps I come down to Torino (Turin) in August. Following Hannibal’s route, I come not to conquer the Taurini like Hannibal but instead to be conquered by Torino, so famous for its slow food – […]
By Patrick Hunt The subtitle of Andreas Kluth’s insightful book Hannibal and Me is “What History’s Greatest Military Strategist Can Teach Us About Success and Failure”. It has more than just Hannibal wisdom, as expected from a writer for whom history is family and family is history: his great […]
By Staff Rebecca Schall has published several fascinating photographic histories of Paris with stunning black and white photos that once again prove the important role of photodocumentation in our understanding of the past several centuries. While art may render history on its own terms, photojournalism has its special place in preserving […]
By Staff George Dyson is a rare bird, descended from a long line of creative genius, rendering him more than merely sympathetic to genius as an historian of science. His new book almost out, Turing’s Cathedral: Origins of the Digital Universe (Pantheon 2012) is an insightful paean to a generation […]
by Patrick Hunt Solomon is one of the huge enigmas of biblical legend, larger than life yet still mostly mysterious, although a brilliant new book distills much of the lore. This book by Steven Weitzman, Solomon: The Lure of Wisdom (Yale, 2011) carefully explores the conundrum of what we can […]
By Staff What intellectual “postcard” should we choose to send ourselves from any great repository of history? Several of our Electrum Magazine staff-members (Patrick Hunt, A.C. Williams, P.F. Sommerfeldt and Melissa Guertin) were at the British Museum this past week (late March 2011) – and some of us for five […]