Tag Archive for: Modern

Book review: “Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman,” by Brooke Hauser

When I was a teenager, I would always perk up when a talk-show host announced that he was about to introduce a woman who knew a lot about sex. This was back when information on the subject was still hard to come by, so the prospect of some ravishing, free …
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Atheism has ancient roots and is not ‘modern invention’, claims new text

Cambridge academic’s new book disputes that atheism is a ‘modern invention’ and sets out evidence that ‘disbelief in the supernatural is as old as the hills’ Atheism is not a modern invention from the western Enlightenment, but actually dates …
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Modern Love: The Invention of the Diamond Engagement Ring

“Diamonds are intrinsically worthless, except for the deep psychological need they fill.” -De Beers Chairman Nicky Oppenheimer It’s Valentine’s Day – and everyone, single or paired, is thinking about love. And what’s more inextricably linked with love than …
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The rediscovery of this writer in the Renaissance opened the way to the modern world (and, more importantly, the invention of political science)

The work of the the Roman writer Lucretius was lost to the world for more than a thousand years. When his poem “De Rerum Natura” was rediscovered in the Renaissance, Lucretius’s ideas slowly started to percolate through Renaissance Europe, making it …
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Modern Invention of the Medieval Executioner lecture to debunk stereotypes

The dreary rain fell gently on the convict as he approached his end. His crime – the murder of a fellow villager –has sealed his fate to the executioner’s block. As he reaches his destination, he looks at the man to terminate his life by order of the …
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