Criticism
Privileged and patriotic, A Polish princess who agitated for her country’s independence. Times Literary Supplement, November 1, 2024
An Anthropologist’s Reach Exceeds His Grasp, Harvey Whitehouse’s overambitious new book. Chronicle of Higher Education, August 13, 2024.
What We Can Learn From Ancient History (and What We Can’t), Two new books take very different approaches to the study of humanity’s origins. Chronicle of Higher Education, May 9, 2024.
History, Fast and Slow: Two new books model radically different ways of studying the past. (The ‘New Science of History’ Is Bunk) Chronicle of Higher Education, September 13, 2023.
The music moved me to tears: Falling in love with Albania. The Guardian, May 18, 2023.
Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer, The Observer, April 2, 2023.
‘Ketman’ and doublethink: what it costs to comply with tyranny, Aeon, October 9, 2017.
The Southern Curtain: Kapka Kassabova’s ‘Border’, Los Angeles Review of Books, October 1, 2017.
Your Own Pirate Radio: Trabant’s Music Videos, Public Books, September 25, 2017.
Wine, Olive Oil, and Wisteria: A Sensual Tour of Lviv, the “City of Lions,” Los Angeles Review of Books, May 27, 2017.
Stalin’s Finger, Book Review, The Point, April 18, 2016.
China’s Most Censored Author Published His Riskiest Book Yet, The New Republic, July 30, 2015.
Sunshine of Absolute Neglect, A review of Dave Hickey’s Sunshine and Farmers. Los Angeles Review of Books, May 29, 2015.
The Memory Wars, History is re-told to fit the needs of the present, but these distortions create violent conflicts of their own. Prospect Magazine, July 2014.
Noma: Where does René Redzepi fit in the new world of food? The Point, June 12, 2014.
Portrait of the Writer: Literary Lives in Focus: What’s the secret behind the best photographs of novelists, asks Jacob Mikanowski. Prospect Magazine, January 23, 2014.
Yemen, the Crucible of al-Qaida, Was Once a Powerful Arabian Kingdom Run by Jews, a new book sheds light on the complicated conflicts among Jews, Christians, and pagans in the pre-Islamic Middle East, Tablet Magazine, August 7, 2013.
Sculpting in Time: Geoff Dyer on Tarkovsky, Los Angeles Review of Books, July 12, 2012.
Decay is the Way Dead Things Live (on Bruno Schulz), Los Angeles Review of Books, March 2, 2012.
The Aira Effect, The Millions, August 13, 2010.
More history, art, obsession, and science
A Song of Ice and Fire and Soup, What’s behind George R.R. Martin’s obsession with chowder in bread bowls? Slate, July 5, 2017.
Reconstructing Lost Worlds With Poop: Ancient dung samples are being used to figure out how the mammoth went extinct and the Americas were populated. The Atlantic, December 19, 2017.
The Austro-Hungarian Officer Corps — and Us, Chronicle of Higher Education, November 19, 2017.
The Fight to Bring Home the Headdress of an Aztec Emperor, The brilliant object sits on display in a Viennese museum—and Mexico’s been wanting it back for decades. Atlas Obscura, September 26, 2017.
Climbing Kanchenjunga, The Point Magazine, July 19, 2017.
The Emperor Of Air, How a 19th-century French lawyer crowned himself a Patagonian king. The Awl, May 30, 2017.
The Giant Sea Mammal That Went Extinct in Less Than Three Decades. The Atlantic, April 19, 2017.
The Wheel And The Knife, The ecstatic and drastic rituals of Russia’s radical Christian sects. The Awl, March 17, 2017.
Caravaggio’s Boy, Who was Francesco Buoneri, and why did his face show up in so many of the famous painter’s canvases? The Awl, January 24, 2017.
How to Read the Bones Like a Scapulimancer, JSTOR Daily, September 16, 2016.
The Library of Dreams, An ancient encyclopedia of the subconscious, The Awl, August 4, 2016.
The Self-Sacrificing Japanese Pilgrims Who Chose to be Swallowed by the Sea, for 1,000 years, Buddhists in Japan sealed themselves into boats and let the waves carry them. Atlas Obscura, April 12, 2016.
A Natural History of Walter Rothschild The tortoise and the heir: one very rich man’s zoological obsession. The Awl, April 11, 2016.
Were the Mysterious Bog People Human Sacrifices? A British archaeologist argues that the miraculously preserved bodies were left in the water as offerings to the gods. The Atlantic, March 11, 2016.
The Curious Story of Wierszalin, a Belarussian Prophet’s 1930s Forest Utopia, Eliasz Klimowicz’s followers believed he was Christ reborn. Atlas Obscura, March 8, 2016.
The Doomed Blind Botanist Who Brought Poetry to Plant Description, Atlas Obscura, February 2016.
The Art of Decay, The Point, June 16, 2015.
Paleolithic Diets: Bigger on Fashion than Fact, Take a big helping of a fantasy of our evolutionary past, stir in fears of modern dirt and decadence, and leave out incest and cannibalism. Prospect Magazine, November 20,2014.
New Sounds, Old Voices, New Yorker, February 26, 2014.
The Tongue of Rogues How secret languages develop in closed societies, Slate, December 5, 2013.
Papyralysis, Los Angeles Review of Books, November 14, 2013.
A Secret Library, Digitally Excavated, New Yorker, October 9, 2013.
Shutter Madness, Gary Winogrand’s photography obsession. The Awl, June 13, 2013.
Our Radical Future: Cults, Utopias and Rebellions of the 1890's, The Awl, April 26, 2013.
That Face! The Uncanny Art Of Studio Photography’s Heyday, The Awl, October 15, 2012.
The Frightening Politics of Hungary’s House of Terror, The Awl, March 30, 2012.
After Arcadia, The Point Magazine, September 19, 2011.