Solitude standing
From medieval anchoresses to poets, singers, and writers throughout the ages, seclusion is often seen as a particularly female act. But a closer look reveals a more nuanced history..
Notebooks are snapshots from our writers, reflecting on current affairs and underappreciated aspects of culture and history.
From medieval anchoresses to poets, singers, and writers throughout the ages, seclusion is often seen as a particularly female act. But a closer look reveals a more nuanced history..
Baudelaire's poetry, both verse and prose, is at once an attempt to look the Creator in the eye as an equal, and also a means of throwing himself at His feet.
Lying awake in the dead of night is anathema to modern sensibilities – and an insomniac’s worst fear. But our pre-industrial ancestors understood (and experienced) night-time in ri..
In the twenty-first century globalised and cyber-connected world, the economic engine is the centre, and that centre is the Indo-Pacific.
The country loves to laud its inventors, veracity aside. History, after all, isn’t the past, it’s what we say the past was.
The everyday municipal pool does not feature much in the canon of great swimming pools. But it has its charms.
Letizia Bonaparte, Napoleon’s so-called Madame Mère, loomed large in the emperor’s life instilling in him the tenacity and force of will which led him to conquer much of Europe.
Modern magnates such as Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel should heed the warnings of the Ancients in their quest for immortality.
Albrecht Dürer felt that he had to prove his ability as a painter to Italian audiences. His time in Venice left an indelible imprint on Italy's culture and on the great artist's le..