I've read and admired Maya Jasanoff's work for decades, now.  As an historian of the 18th and 19th century British Empire, she made her name with her first book Edge of Empire and then, a decade later, Liberty's Exiles.  Both of those are great books of archival historical work, on parts of the population of the British Empire.

Her newer book, The Dawn Watch, is a book about Joseph Conrad.  But it seems to me her virtues are not suited to this engagement quite as well.  Here--at least in my view--her job is not...

Over the past few years, podcasts have become one of my favorite things to do while exercising or doing work where I need some preoccupation—cleaning, cooking, and the like.  They're great; perhaps they're allowing me to be distracted by a kind of higher intellectualized divertissement, and perhaps they're letting me escape from the silence I truly need; but I love them nonetheless.

One of my favorite podcasts is...

What caused the Younger Dryas cooling period?  It was the environmental episode that perhaps sparked the turn to agriculture and cities, and civilization.  Some scientists believe they have evidence now that it was not a meteor strike, but a period of vulcanism.  

Stefan Collini, not a mean public writer himself, on uncovering evidence of...

Sorry for my delay.  Nothing big--just change of station, getting settled in, etc..  All hale & hearty, safe & sound, hunky & dory.  

Now we return to our regularly scheduled programming.