Podcast

EI Portraits

Our writers profile individuals, some well-known, some overlooked, and explore how they shaped the world as we know it. Read by Sebastian Brown.

From left to right: Dorothy McDonald (wife of John, née Eisner), Leon Trotsky and John McDonald in Coyoacan, Mexico, in the 1930s. McDonald was recruited to help defend Trotsky from charges made at Stalin's show trials. Credit: General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University
An 18th-century portrait of Maria Antonia of Bavaria, Electress of Saxony, by Peter Jacob Horemans.
Woman Playing a Piano, by Winifred Nicholson. Her work was championed by Helen Sutherland.
President John F. Kennedy (left, in rocking chair) meets the newly-appointed US Ambassador to West Germany, George McGhee.
Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura yells to the crowd at his People's Inauguration in Minneapolis.
A print of Heinrich Biber
An excerpt from Nehemiah Wallington's diary
Anna Komnene, a Byzantine princess and scholar.
Saint Augustine and his mother, Saint Monica.