Ivan’s Singer
Image Source: Franz Riss Skomorokh in a village, wikipedia Noone knows for sure how Ivan the…
The many cradles of civilizations (list)
Civilizations and natures From time to time, I am tempted to be a prophet of a…
Coming back late from the Hyacinth garden
Image source: Böcklin: In der Gartenlaube, ~1891, By Arnold Böcklin – “Von Anker bis Zünd, Die…
Quotes to write by 1.
From Niccolo Machiavelli’s letter to the magnificent Lorenzo de Medici in presenting his The Prince: Nor…
Madness & History
I am reading Andrew Scull’s Madness in Civilization: a cultural history of insanity from the Bible…
A song of sorries
The Parliament of Victoria recently voted an apology for laws that criminalised homosexuality. It followed a…
Time may change me but I can’t change time
Roger Scruton writes, in How to be a Conservative: Whatever our religion and our private convictions,…
Inga Clendinnen, Dancing with Strangers
If I were to teach a course on the history of Australians in the global nineteenth…
The enigmas of Ivan the Terrible
Ivan the Terrible tests the limits of historical understanding. All that we know of him we…
Inspirations from Roberto Calasso
I aspire to write history not like a dry professor, but more like the shimmering mysteries…