What is the most American institution of all? The mind first goes in the directions of church, of the military, of football. But if we consider only the systems of modern life developed on United States soil, the most influential must surely be fast food. That influence manifests in not just the homeland but the rest of the world as well, and like every robust American creation, fast food both changes and adapts to the foreign lands in which it takes root. Though unknown in the U.S., the yellow motorcycles of McDonald's deliverymen are an everyday sight in the capital of South Korea, where I live. That could hardly have figured in even the farthest-reaching visions Richard and Maurice McDonald had for the entirely new model of hamburger stand they launched in San Bernardino, California, in 1948.

Back in postwar America, "car culture reigns supreme. Drive-in movies and drive-in restaurants become all the rage, taking convenience to another level." So says the narrator of the clip above, from the fast-food episode of the Netflix series History 101. But [...]

A new deal to start a new year: Between now and January 14, 2023, Coursera is offering a $200 discount on its annual subscription plan called "Coursera Plus." Normally priced at $399, Coursera Plus (now available for $199) gives you access to 90% of Coursera's courses, Guided Projects, Specializations, and Professional Certificates, all of which are taught by top instructors from leading universities and companies (e.g. Yale, Duke, Google, Facebook, and more). The $199 annual fee--which translates roughly to 55 cents per day--could be a good investment for anyone interested in learning new subjects and skills in 2023, or earning certificates that can be added to your resume. Just as Netflix's streaming service gives you access to unlimited movies, Coursera Plus gives you access to unlimited courses and certificates. It's basically an all-you-can-eat deal.

You can try out Coursera Plus for 14 days, and if it doesn't work for you, you can get your money back. Explore the offer [...]

"We should fear Grant Wood. Every artist and every school of artists should be afraid of him, for his devastating satire." Gertrude Stein wrote those words after seeing American Gothic, the 1930 painting that would become one of the most iconic images created in the United States. Yet Wood himself "said he painted American Gothic to extol rural American values, real people in their well-ordered world: an image of reassurance during the onset of the Great Depression." That's how Art History School host Paul Priestley puts it in the video above, which asks of the painting, "Is it a satire, or a positive statement of American rural life?"

It could be neither; then again, it could be both. That very ambiguity goes some way to explaining American Gothic's success — as well as its persistence in the culture through frequent and unceasing parody. Yet in its day, the painting also angered some of its viewers: "An Iowan farmer's wife who'd seen the picture in the papers in 1930 telephoned Wood to express her anger," says Priestly.

"She claimed [...]

Back in September, we mentioned that Yale historian Timothy Snyder had started teaching a course, The Making of Modern Ukraine, and putting the lectures online. With the fall semester now over, you can watch 23 lectures on YouTube. All of the lectures appear above, or on this playlist. Key questions explored by the course include:

What brought about the Ukrainian nation?  Ukraine must have existed as a society and polity on 23 February 2022, else Ukrainians would not have collectively resisted Russian invasion the next day.  Why has the existence of Ukraine occasioned such controversy?  In what ways are Polish, Russian, and Jewish self-understanding dependent upon experiences in Ukraine?  Just how and when did a modern Ukrainian nation emerge?  Just how for that matter does any modern nation emerge?  And why some nations and not others?  What is the balance between structure and agency in history?  Can nations be chosen, and does it matter?  Can the choices of individuals influence the rise of much larger social organizations?  If so, how?  Ukraine was the country most [...]

The exalted status of Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica is reflected by the fact that everybody knows it as, simply, the Principia. Very few of us, by contrast, speak of the Historia when we mean to refer to John Ray and Francis Willughby's De Historia Piscium, which came out in 1686, the year before the Principia. Both books were published by the Royal Society, and as it happens, the formidable cost of Willughby and Ray's lavish work of ichthyology nearly kept Newton's groundbreaking treatise on motion and gravitation from the printing press.

According to the Royal Society's web site, "Ray and Willughby’s Historia did not prove to be the publishing sensation that the Fellows had hoped and the book nearly bankrupted the Society. This meant that the Society was unable to meet its promise to support the publication of Isaac Newton’s masterpiece."

Fortunately, "it was saved from obscurity by Edmund Halley, then Clerk at the Royal Society" — and now better known for his eponymous [...]