Actress Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962), portraying actress Lillian Russell (1861-1922). Photographed by Richard Avedon (1923-2004), 1957.
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Alternate Presidents
Review of Mike Resnickโs Alternate Presidents
Every four years, American voters get the chance to elect a new president. The choices voters, and sometimes the House of Representatives, made on those occasions have been a rich vein from which alternate-history writers have drawn to tell stories. The late but prolific writer and editor Mike Resnick certainly thought so, commissioning a volume with more than two dozen such tales. Published asโฆ
1898: Our Last Men in the Philippines
1898: Our Last Men in the Philippines shows the great bluff that is imperialism as Spanish men die ingloriously abroad for nothing
Many of us in the Western world might think of Southeast Asia as a dense jungle where white people go to die. The French and the Americans died in Vietnam. The Dutch died in Indonesia. The British died in Malaya.
The Philippines are often overlooked. Americans may remember the islands played a role in World War II. They will speak of Corregidor (properly with a rolled โrโ and a โgโ pronouncedโฆ
Flying Wings
A century after they were first imagined, flying wings still look futuristic
Nothing says future of aviation like a flying wing. A century after they were first imagined, they still look futuristic. Probably because so few of them have flown.
Dieselpunk loves to stock the Nazi air fleet with flying wings designed by the brother Walter and Reimar Horten, but they werenโt the only pioneers in the field. Americaโs Jack Northrop, founder of the Northrop Corporation, wasโฆ
Basil’s War
A fun spy adventure in Nazi-occupied France: Our review of Stephen Hunterโs Basilโs War
Even as we pass eighty years since the days of Spitfires and Messerschmitts, Britainโs fight against the Nazis maintains an heroic luster. To many Britons, it was their countryโs finest hour as people came together to withstand the German bomber fleets. Even many Americans like myself have had such feelings, for it is a seemingly obvious episode of pure good versus pure evil.
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The Art of Shusei Nagaoka
The retro-futuristic art of Shusei Nagaoka
Japanese artist Shusei Nagaoka gained renown in the 1970s and 80s, when he illustrated album covers for artists like Earth, Wind & Fire, Electric Light Orchestra and Jefferson Starship.
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For All Mankind
Our review of For All Mankind
The first time I gave For All Mankind a try was not long after Iโd seen Altered Carbon, and another ten episodes of Joel Kinnamanโs pent-up anger was a little too much for me.
I still find it off-putting, and his character in For All Mankind shows almost no growth over two seasons. But the rest of the series makes up for it.
It starts with the Soviet Union beating the Americans to the Moon andโฆ
Remaking the World
From the imperial era to the global ambitions of totalitarian ideologies - a history of attempts to remake the world
It wasnโt until the modern era that would-be conquerors and do-gooders could think on a global scale. The discovery of the New World and the invention of steamboats, the telegraph, airplanes, television and intercontinental ballistic missiles made the world feel smaller. Egyptian pharaohs and Chinese emperors may have claimed to rule everything under the sun and the heavens; it wasnโt until theโฆ
The Art of Arthur Radebaugh
The atomic-era art of Arthur Radebaugh
Arthur Radebaugh (1906-74) was a prolific midcentury illustrator, perhaps best known for his โCan You Imagineโ and โCloser Than We Thinkโ series, which were syndicated in newspapers across the United States in the years after World War II. The usually one-panel comics predicted various future scenarios, some of which, like remote working and electronic home libraries, came true!
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Free State of Jones
Review of Free State of Jones
Much has been written about how much of the American South was complicit in the institution of slavery. Historian Ira Berlin wrote in Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in America (1998) that the South wasnโt just a โsociety with slavesโ; it was a โslave societyโ. Chattel slavery was the institution around which life in those states revolved.
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All Time Travel Authorities Look the Same
All time travel authorities look the same
I finally watched Loki on Disney+ (itโs hilarious) and one of the things that stood out to me was the aesthetic of the showโs Time Variance Authority (TVA). Brutalist with a mix of midcentury graphics and 1970s decor, it reminded me of the Fallout video games as well as Counterpart, the most underrated science-fiction series of recent years. The Office of Interchange in that show also usesโฆ
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