It feels like I’m stating the obvious, but history teaches all sorts of thinking skills. One of these is that it enhances our ability to see patterns. When you’re just going through your day-to-day life, it’s easy to miss larger patterns, particularly when you don’t compare what’s happening locally to events on a statewide, national or global level. It’s the myopia of living in the now. When you take the time to investigate an historical…
I recently watched the PBS NOVA documentary “Dawn of Humanity” on Netflix. This almost 2-hour exploration of anthropologists excavating a cache of bones deep in a South African cave was riveting. The bones turned out to be from a previously-unknown species of hominid. Because the cache held the bones of so many individuals, the paleoanthropologists studying the cave surmised it was an intentional burial site. The documentary features Dr. Lee Berger, the lead paleoanthropologist for the…
I finished reading a fabulous book on the history of color and colorants called “The Secret Lives of Color” by Kassia St. Clair. The design of the book is, appropriately enough, full of color, from the multi-colored polka dots on the front cover to the color bands on the page edges. Deep dives into a particular topic over the course of history, such as this book presents, provide a concentrated look at the development of…