Babar's Moon Trip was a pop-up book I had never come across before. It seems influenced a little by the space race and the American efforts to get to the Moon.  They face problems like: not achieving escape velocity for the Moon, failure of stage separation, failure to adjust quickly to reduced gravity on the Moon, and a very short exploration time to obtain samples before their launch window :) It is not really a "pure" pop-up book but rather has some pop-ups and various flaps and tabs you can pull (for action.)  de Brunhoff, Laurent. Babar's Moon Trip. New York: Random House. (18 p.) 1968.

This is the third piece of the fourth part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, IVb) looking at the lives of pre-modern peasant farmers – a majority of all of the humans who have ever lived. Last time, we started looking at the subsistence of peasant agriculture by considering the productivity of our … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVc: Rent and Extraction →

A Conversation with The Cultural Tutor

In 1973, Sean Plunkett (1948-2023) was riding the London Underground during Rush Hour. His portraits of the city have been published by Café Royal Books.     After studying photography at Ealing College, Sean Plunkett worked in mines in Australia and then as a builder in the UK. None of his pictures had ever … Continue reading "Rush Hour On The London Underground, 1973" The post Rush Hour On The London Underground, 1973 appeared first on Flashbak.

Jeanne Duval is mostly known as the dark-skinned muse of the poet Charles Baudelaire, his demon who inspired his best poems and lived 20 years with him in a dramatic and abusive relationship. However, Duval’s real identity still remains a question, as her partner’s account can hardly be trusted. As a Black woman in […]