This week, recent events have inspired me to think about the wide, wide world on a smaller scale.

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Click here to buy a copy of my book Travels in Time Across Europe which tells the stories from my year living in London that began 10 years ago this week.

This week, on the current round of redistricting sweeping through Missouri.

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Sources

[1] “On Democracy,” Wednesday Blog 5.39.

[2] “We, Irish Americans,” Wednesday Blog 6.10.

[3] “On Servant Leadership,” Wednesday Blog 6.15.

[4] “Freedom from Fear,” Wednesday Blog 2.6; “Embodied Patriotism,” Wednesday Blog 6.26.

[5] “Governor Kehoe announces special session on congressional redistricting and initiative petition reform,” Office of the Governor of the State of Missouri, 29 August 2025.

[6] “A Scary Time For Chicago | Trump Gets FOMO Over China's Military Parade | Donald's Life Lessons,” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (3 September 2025), YouTube.

[7] “A Defense of Humanism in a Time of War,” Wednesday Blog 6.24.

This week, comparing the benefits of pleasure with the rewards of good work.

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Sources:

• Photo: © Juan Valentín CC BY-NC 4.0 https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/427040191. No modifications made. Available under public license. Image slightly cropped length-wise for podcast episode art.
• [1] André Thevet, Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique, (Antwerp, 1558), 4v ; Aristotle, Situations and Names of Winds 973b, 12–13.
• [2] Homer, Odyssey 9.106–110, trans. Robert Fagles, (Penguin, 1996), 214.
• [3] Homer, Odyssey 9.110–117, trans. Fagles, 214.
• [4] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1118a.
• [5] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1118a, 8.

This week, how the greatest wisdom is simple in nature.

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Sources:

Photo by Elizabeth Duke.

[1] Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek: The Saint’s Life of Alexis Zorba, trans. Peter Bien, (Simon and Schuster, 1946, 2014), 81.

[2] “Elephant Tails,” Wednesday Blog 5.24.

[3] “Asking the Computer,” Wednesday Blog 5.26.

[4] “On Political Violence,” Wednesday Blog 5.17.

This week, I reflect on the flexibility of the word world.

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This week, I argue that we must have some degree of artifice to organize our thoughts and recognize the things we see in our world.

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Sources:

[1] For my recent essays referring to this current historiographic project see “On Sources,” Wednesday Blog 6.22, “On Writing,” Ibid., 6.27, and “On Knowledge,” Ibid., 6.29.

[2] Lee Alan Dugatkin, Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose, (University of Chicago Press, 2009).

[3] Staffan Müller-Wille, “Linnean Lens | Linnaeus’ Lapland Journey Diary (1732),“ moderated by Isabelle Charmantier, virtual lecture, 12 May 2025, by the Linnean Society of London, YouTube, 1:04:18, link here.

[4] Jason Roberts, Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life, (Random House, 2024), 45–49.

[5] Roberts, 20.

[6] Roberts, 115–125.

[7] Roberts, 109.

[8] André Thevet, Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique, (Antwerp, 1558), 16r–16v. The translation is my own.

[9] Roberts, 109.

[10] Damião de Góis, Chronica do Felicissimo Rei Dom Emanuel, 4 vols., (Lisbon, 1566–1567).

[11] Geraldine Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages, (Cambridge University Press, 2018), 190.

[12] Roberts, 110.

[13] Michael Wintroub, A Savage Mirror: Power, Identity, and Knowledge in Early Modern France, (Stanford University Press, 2006), 42.

[14] Roberts, xii.

[15] Roberts, 107.

[16] Roberts, 96–98.

[17] Michael Allin, Zarafa: A Giraffe’s True Story, from Deep in Africa to the Heart of Paris, (Delta, 1998).

This week, I express my dismay at how fast time seems to be moving for me of late and how it reflects the existence of various sources of knowledge in our world.

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Sources:

[1] Ada Palmer, Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age, (University of Chicago Press, 2025), 603.

[2] If this word epistemology leaves you confused, have no fear, for my own benefit as well I wrote a blog post explaining this word alongside two of its compatriots. “Three Ologies,” Wednesday Blog 6.6 (podcast 5.6).

This week, I want to address how we recognize knowledge in comparison to the various fields of inquiry through which we refine our understanding of things.

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Art

Raphael, The School of Athens (1509–1511), Apostolic Palace, Vatican Museums, Vatican City. Public Domain.

Sources

• “On Writing,” Wednesday Blog 6.27.
• Surekha Davies, Humans: A Monstrous History, (University of California Press, 2025).
• Marcy Norton, The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals After 1492, (Harvard University Press, 2024), 307.
• Dead Poets Society, (1989) "What will your verse be?" Video on YouTube.