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Reading List More from A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
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 →
This is the continuation – the first of several – of the fourth part of our series looking at the lives of pre-modern peasant farmers – a majority of all of the humans who have ever lived. Last time we discussed the survival requirements (in food and textiles) of a peasant household as well as … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVb: Working Days →
Hey folks, Fireside this week! As I noted a couple of weeks ago, things are probably going to get more than a little fireside-y over the next few weeks, simply because of the start of the semester – and a semester in which I am undertaking a set of entire new preps (that is, teaching … Continue reading Fireside Friday, August 27, 2025 (On Defending History) →
This is the start of the fourth part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb) discussing the structures of life for pre-modern peasants, who made up the majority of all humans who have ever lived. In the last few sections, we’ve looked broadly at how mortality, marriage and childbearing patterns shape the households these folks … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVa: Subsistence and a Little More →
Hey folks, Fireside this week! The new semester is starting up next week, so things may be a little more fireside-y than usual over the next few weeks, but I do promise we will get to the end of “Life, Work, Death and the Peasant” eventually. That said, since I am teaching Latin rather than … Continue reading Fireside Friday, August 15, 2025 (On Latin Pronunciation) →
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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 →
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.
Today I attended in New York, at Columbia University (which still looks a bit like a fortress because of the students protests that took place there about 1.5 years ago) a conference at the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Institute for Policy Dialogue.
The dragon of Revelation is one of the symbols that needs no interpretation. The Bible provides the interpretation unequivocally. To fully understand the dragon’s influence, however, we must consider the immediate context of Revelation, the book’s relation to the totality of scripture, and the ancient Near Eastern mythology that influenced the Israelite authors. The […]
