Happy Friday,
I’ll keep this intro short this week. As you read this, I will be hopping around Bavaria, visiting the Christmas markets in cities large and small to celebrate the season. What a treat!
Here are the best articles from around the Internet this week:
Al-Biruni was an 11th century polymath, distinguishing himself in his command of history, as well as mathematics, astronomy, and languages. In his role as a historian, al-Biruni cautioned that while, “The life of man is not sufficient to learn thoroughly the traditions of one of the many nations,” the historian’s duty is “to gather the traditions from those who have reported them, to correct them as much as possible, and to leave the rest as it is, in order to make our work help him, who seeks truth and loves wisdom.” Centuries before The New York Times, or military strategist B.H. Liddell Hart were adamant about the attention given to the “first draft of history,” a Middle-Eastern polymath was alerting us to the same danger. In this passage, he reminds his readers that because history relies on reported events and analysis, and the historian must take care to verify those reports as accurate.
The baguette has been voted onto UNESCO’s cultural heritage list.
The London Review of Books had interesting comments on historian David Henkin’s The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms that Made Us Who We Are, which was published in November, and which I am reading this month. Henkin looks at the various calendars which have mandated time over the centuries, how and they have directed religious and working life, as well as morality. He gives particular attention to the use of both Julian and Gregorian calendars in the United States. The review seems to quibble with Henkin’s focus on the week, as opposed to time in general, but the book itself seems thoroughly researched and full of insight.
Is a return to fundamentalism a consequence of the stability of our modern age?
A detailed look into why city streetlights across the States have been spontaneously turning purple in recent years. The last time I was home in Texas, I noticed a few purple lights on the highway there; mystery solved!
Currently reading: The Week by David Henkin
Have a wonderful weekend.
Photo by freestocks on Unsplash
