The Rest Is History, our digest of readings and obituaries, is now on Substack.
THIS WEEK’S READINGS
• “Crabapple proceeds from a refreshing assumption that Jews were agents of history and not mere casualties of its worst tendencies, that the footprint of anti-Zionists in the twentieth century was robust and central to Jewish history at large, and that exclusionary notions of Jewish identity were already outdated a century ago.” (The New Republic)
• The very first reviews of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince. (Literary Hub)
• Tracing the gentrification of underground parties. (Pitchfork)
• “Six of history’s most dangerous fashion trends.” (The Conversation)
• A history of the literary agent. (Bookforum)
• Medieval abortion stories. (Guardian)
• “10 NYC Holdout Buildings that Stood in the Way of Development.” (Untapped Cities)
• • “For most of U.S. history, teaching Black history happened in the shadows.” (Hammer & Hope)
• On Charles Brockden Brown and the “American contradiction between the cool rationalism of our founding documents and the fervent irrationalism of our national character.” (The Daily)
• Meet Bill Poon, the chef who changed Britain’s understanding of Cantonese food. (Vittles)
THIS WEEK IN OBITUARIES
Glen Hansard, Kavinsky, Bill Oddie, Gunther von Hagens, Simone Forti, Charles Gaines, Chuck Russell, John Ali, David Hirsch, John Esposito, Keigo Higashino, Ida Schmertz, Jennifer Finch, Betye Saar, and James Duckett and Dominick Occhicone, who were killed by lethal injection by the state of Florida in the state’s first modern-day double execution; Occhicone was the oldest prisoner executed in Florida 60 years, overtaking Dennis Sochor and Dusty Ray Spencer, who each set that record at the time of their executions in recent weeks.
Lapham’s Quarterly and the Lapham’s Quarterly Substack are projects of the American Agora Foundation, which is dedicated to fostering an appreciation of, and acquaintance with, the uses and value of history. Read more about the Quarterly’s ongoing revival here.