this is one of the most offensive things I've seen in years

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Sugar: a Stimulant That Made the Modern World Chasing that sugar high

This week, a look at sugar's role as one of the stimulants that made the modern world. worldhistory.substack.com/p/sugar-a-st...

Then, plantation slavery made sugar common and cheap. Sugar became an affordable stimulant, albeit one with very questionable ethics.

At first, in Europe, sugar was a rare delicacy and display of wealth. Rich people would display elaborate sugar sculptures on their tables. 🧵🗃️

What I feel bad, I go outside. It usually works!

This is a thread of small behavioral changes that have changed my life, feel free to chime in with yours:

if we want the vibecession to end perhaps we should be focused primarily on reducing the grinding existential dread of the future that even many objectively comfortable and highly-paid people seem to be feeling nowadays - and yeah, i do think there are practical things one could do to improve this.

learnt from the very good book on gladiatorial life I'm reading that powerful Roman men generally wanted to be depicted in statues as looking tired and worn because it conveyed them as being hard working and self-sacrificing. which explains all those baggy eyes.

Guys check out this Etruscan pig (450 BCE, The Getty www.getty.edu/art/collecti...) 🗃️

France passed a law requiring solar panels on every parking lot with more than 80 spaces.

Equals 10 nuclear reactors
Reduces heat island, shades cars

The US -- 800 million parking spaces. Most of them are uncovered asphalt sitting in direct sunlight.

Why aren't we doing this?

A Long History of Feeling Small Images that changed perspectives, from America to Artemis

The photos from Artemis II provided some perspective when we really needed it. What other images have changed how humans think about their place in the world or even the universe? 🗃️ open.substack.com/pub/worldhis...

Turned on NBC. They talked about “President tipping a DoorDash driver $100”.

This woman participated in GOP ads before playing other roles. There is no DoorDash deliveries to the Oval Office. Please exercise proper judgement when consuming news.

My Spring to do list
by JD Vance

1. Prevent Iran war
2. Negotiate end to Iran war
3. Reelect Viktor Orbán

Thanks!

no one is doing it like jd vance, a loser across three continents in a single weekend

more seriously congrats to the hungarian people for kicking that asshole out

*sobbing while wearing my Spurs shirt in the car on the way to go buy cat litter at PetSmart*

Tea: a Stimulant That Made the Modern World The best of herbs!

As well as war and espionage: worldhistory.substack.com/p/tea-a-stim...

First in the series: tea, which sparked new ideas about mindfulness and civility...

The energy that made the modern world didn’t come out of nowhere. A new global trade in stimulants gave workers the energy to toil in the factories and thinkers the fuel to invent a new world. 🗃️🧵

I'm building up our resources pages on our public scholarly website.

We currently have lists of open access sites, publications that accept cold pitches, and job listing sites.

What other resources would be helpful all in one place for indie scholars/grad students/ECRs/public scholars?

The Moon: oh wow you guys decided to come back

Artemis II crew: earth’s haunted

Text of "Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars)" by Muriel Rukeyser. Text is online at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47657/poem-i-lived-in-the-first-century-of-world-wars

Muriel Rukeyser, always but especially today. Full text at www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47657/...

Oh. My. God.

[kudos on massive visual memory]
v @burritojustice.bsky.social

The rest of the world should probably collectively stand up to the U.S. right now, tbh

The US desperately suing for peace and Iran refusing. A war that the US, not Iran, started with a surprise decapitation strike a month ago. The most abject military and diplomatic humiliation in modern history. Trump should be dragged out in chains.

How a Machine Became a Metaphor The guillotine in history and culture

Yep, I wrote this week about the history of the guillotine in art and culture:
worldhistory.substack.com/p/how-a-mach...

The guillotine soon became a symbol not of reason but of chaos and disorder.

But it also became a symbol of the limits of that rationality. The people who ran France had evolved beyond medieval-style torture in the name of humanism, but they didn’t think to discard the death penalty altogether.