Category: History

February 6, 2014

Hans van de Ven on the Chinese Maritime Customs Service

The following post is by Hans van de Ven, author of Breaking with the Past: The Maritime Customs Service and the Global Origins of Modernity in China: “The Chinese Maritime Customs Service helped keep China together at key critical moments...

December 4, 2013

VIDEO: Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter on Thai Stick

Australia Network News recently broadcast a story about Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers, and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade, by Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter. The story focuses, in part, on Mike Ritter’s personal story as someone who dropped...

November 27, 2013

Doughnuts? A Thanksgiving Tradition? Apparently So.

We culminate our week-long (or, at least short week) feature on Thanksgiving with a quick look at the holiday’s history in New York City. In his chapter, “The Food and Drink of New York from 1624 to 1898,” from Gastropolis:...

November 21, 2013

Interview with Peter Maguire, author of Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers, and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade

The following is an edited transcript of a podcast interview with Peter Maguire, coauthor of Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers, and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade. The excerpt starts with midway with Maguire talking about the marijuana smugglers. For...

November 20, 2013

Images of Surfing, Drugs, and Drug Smuggling via "Thai Stick"

From California surfers to the hinterlands of Thailand, Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers, and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade, by Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter, documents the growth, professionalization, and dangers of the international marijuana trade. That story is,...

November 19, 2013

Book Giveaway! Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers, and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade

This week we will be featuring Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers, and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade the extraordinary tale of marijuana smuggling in the 1970s by Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter. Throughout the week we will be featuring...

November 14, 2013

Mike Chasar on Remembrance Day and the Case of the $400,000,000 Poem

The following post written for Veteran’s Day or Remembrance Day is by Mike Chasar, author of Everyday Reading: Poetry and Popular Culture in Modern America. The post was originally published on Arcade. I like to think of John McCrae’s “In...

September 17, 2013

Excerpt: Matt J. Rossano's Preface and Introduction to Mortal Rituals

This week our featured book is Mortal Rituals: What the Story of the Andes Survivors Tells Us About Human Evolution, by Matt J. Rossano. In the Preface to Mortal Rituals, Rossano explains the general premise of his work on the...

September 12, 2013

Hollywood and Hitler Reviewed in The New Yorker

The debate continues. Writing for The New Yorker, David Denby weighs in on the competing interpretations of Hollywood’s complicity with Nazism advanced in two new books: Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939, by Thomas Doherty and The Collaboration Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler,...

August 26, 2013

The Art of Being Erich Fromm – A Review from The New York Review of Books

A review of The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet, by Lawrence J. Friedman, was published in the Summer Issue of The New York Review of Books. A link to the review is available by clicking here (you need a...

August 21, 2013

Interview with Whitney Strub, author of Perversion for Profit (now out in paper!)

With Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right now available in paperback, we’re re-posting our earlier interview with the book’s author, Whitney Strub Question: Why “Perversion for Profit”? Won’t people think the book...

August 16, 2013

A Little Gay History — Protest and Rights

We conclude our week-long feature on A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Across the World, by R. B. Parkinson, with a focus not on art and culture but politics. The images above and below are pins from the past...