Month: May 2016
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I Wear My Sunglasses at the Fight? The Emperor Nero and the History of Sunglasses
Nero princeps gladiatorum pugnas spectabat in smaragdo. The princeps Nero viewed the combats of the gladiators in a smaragdus. — Pliny, Natural History, 37.16. There are many fantastical stories to be found in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History. Part of the lure of this encyclopedic work is the (often misleading) conviction with which the statesman explored the objects, peoples, and places […]
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It’s On the Sillybos: The Birth of the Book Title
Anyone who has ever written a book, article, course advertisement, blogpost, or conference paper knows the mental agony that accompanies the completion of this task. It is not enough to write a great book; we must next sell our work with a clever title. We are told that “sexy” titles lure the elusive reader, student, or conference participant to our work. It […]
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Monumental Mausolea: Building Projects and Slave Labor from Antiquity to the World Cup
When excited ticket holders enter the various sports venues erected in Qatar for the World Cup in 2022, they will likely not be told about the lives of the people who helped to build these impressive structures. In 2014 alone, a Nepalese migrant died on the average of once every two days while working on […]
History From Below 