The last third of the eighteenth century was a period of remarkable creativity in the world of German letters, a period historians associate with such famous authors as Lessing, Kant, and Goethe. At that time, however, German works were practically unknown outside of Germany unless translated into French, the universal language of educated Europeans. This […]
Tues., April 16th: The Business History Forum at Columbia University
Tues., April 16th: The Business History Forum at Columbia University “Corporations are People Too”: The Strange History of Corporations and the Fourteenth Amendment with Naomi R. Lamoreaux, Prof. of Economics and History, Yale University In 1886 the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Morrison R. Waite, declared at the start […]
Wed., Apr. 10th: The Business History Forum at Columbia University
“Other People’s Money: Inside the Housing Crisis and the Demise of the Greatest Real Estate Deal Ever Made” with Charles Bagli of the The New York Times In just over three years, real estate giant Tishman Speyer and its partner, BlackRock, lost billions of investors’ dollars on a single deal. The New York Times reporter […]
Never enough Sébastien Le Clerc
I saw Sébastien for the first time last year. Indeed, I fell in love with the beauty of his engravings on viewing his Pratique de la geométrie (Amsterdam: Pierre Mortier, 1691). Although this is a geometry textbook, with plates to illustrate concepts and theorems, my Sébastien added beautiful views and figures to every one […]
John Jay’s Circuit Court Diary
"Your Letter by the Miss Allens is the last that I have recd— I ought to have seen those Ladies, but the Court has unceasingly engrossed my Time– we did not adjourn until 9 last Night– I feel fatigued in body and mind; but Reflections of this kind are not to be endulged– . . […]