Bring on the Board Games
The increasing secularism of the nineteenth century helped make board games a commercial and ideological success in the United States.
Terroir Terror: The 1911 Champagne Riots
An environmental crisis and a dispute over regional boundaries sent both rioters and rivers of champagne pouring into the streets of Aube.
The Magical Furniture of David Roentgen
Cabinetmaker to Marie Antoinette, Roentgen designed “surprise furniture,” bureaus and desks that appeared to magically transform at the push of a button.
Nuremberg: City of Dreams and Nightmares
From a mercantile powerhouse in the Middle Ages to a stage for genocidal horror in the twentieth century, Nuremberg has played a pivotal role in German history.
Vacuum Tube Valley
Silicon Valley’s first high-tech enterprise, Federal Telegraph Co., provided communications for naval ships and radio stations at far-flung US imperial bases.
Fruit Geopeelitics: America’s Banana Republics
The one-way movement of wealth in the banana trade contributed to the political and economic conditions that challenged its hegemony after World War II.
Money, Murder, and Mrs. Clem
Nancy Clem was a Gilded Age con artist whose swindles eventually turned deadly. Her crimes would test the era’s assumptions about class, gender, and criminality.
How Stovemakers Helped Invent Modern Marketing
Most people in the United States have a stove in their kitchen. But how did this “must-have” come to be?
So You Plan to Teach Moby Dick
The study of Melville’s novel is enhanced by contextualizing it with primary and secondary sources related to the American sperm whaling industry.
Bourbon Country
Examining the ingredients—time, grain, government regulations—that have made bourbon an enduring national favorite.