Category: issues

“The effort to put climate change in the foreground of Roman history is motivated both by troves of new data and a heightened sensitivity to the importance of the physical environment. The empire-builders benefitted from impeccable timing: the characteristic warm, wet and stable weather was conducive to economic productivity in an agrarian society. The benefits of economic growth supported the political and social bargains by which the Roman empire controlled its vast territory. The favourable climate, in ways subtle and profound, was baked into the empire’s innermost structure. The end of this lucky climate regime did not immediately, or in any simple deterministic sense, spell the doom of Rome.”

Urbanization has historically been thought of as a necessary feature of economic development and growth, but this study finds the connection is not so simple. While advanced nations benefit from having larger cities, developing nations do not.

This is quite the unpleasant literary lineage story. According to a former board member of The Paris Review, “As soon as Hughes was named to succeed Plimpton, receiving her Times profile, there were ‘powerful movers and shakers in the literary world, and they exerted influence continuously until they got their way.’ Those voices, the former board member said, were led by the late Bob Silvers, who wanted an ‘NYRB or New Yorker type guy.’ Hughes was in the midst of publishing her first full issue around the time that Silvers-led faction started maneuvering to limit her tenure to a year. Eventually, they pulled enough board members over to their side.”

Whoa: “Called the Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, the initiative was spearheaded by Kathleen Kennedy, the president of Lucasfilm; Maria Eitel, the co-chair of the Nike Foundation; the powerhouse attorney Nina Shaw; and Freada Kapor Klein, the venture capitalist who helped pioneer surveys on sexual harassment decades ago.”

The blacklist was real: “‘I recall Miramax telling us they were a nightmare to work with and we should avoid them at all costs,’ Jackson said, referencing the production company Weinstein ran with his brother Bob. As a direct result, he said, both women fell out of the running for parts in his Lord of the Rings series.”

“In 1709, the London journalist Ned Ward published an account of a group he called ‘the Mollies Club.’ Visible through the homophobic bile (he describes the members as a ‘Gang of Sodomitical Wretches’) is the clear image of a social club that sounds, most of all, like a really good time. Every evening of the week, Ward wrote, at a pub he would not mention by name, a group of men came together to gossip and tell stories, probably laughing like drains as they did so, and occasionally succumbing to ‘the Delights of the Bottle.'”

“The Scottish Government’s draft budget for 2018/19 has set out measures to protect funding for arts organisations, despite earlier warnings that subsidy was likely to be cut. Under proposals announced today (December 14) by cabinet secretary for finance and the constitution Derek Mackay, the overall culture budget for will be £166.8 million, an increase of almost 10% on 2017/18 figures.”

“It’s true: The hoop skirt has aged poorly. Its connotations 150 years post-heyday are antiquated at best, antagonistic at worst. From an inside view, though, this ‘choreography of exclusion’ was anything but. Just the opposite, in fact: Its rebellion was quiet, subdued, and feminine, but a rebellion nonetheless. The skirts have lived long enough to become a villain of our racial imagination. To the women who wore them, they were heroic.”