So said the New York Times headline when geologist Marie Tharp discovered the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the gash in the earth that proved the theory of continental drift and helped establish the field of plate tectonics. Tharp made this discovery while producing the first comprehensive maps of the ocean floor. Author Hali Felt, who chronicled Tharp’s life in her book, Soundings, spoke to LQ about this remarkable and overlooked scientist.
Lewis H. Lapham talks with Richard White, author of The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865–1896. More
Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times. More
Lewis H. Lapham talks with the author of The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America. More
Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of The Midnight Kingdom: A History of Power, Paranoia, and the Coming Crisis. More
Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy. More
Lewis Lapham talks with Kory Stamper, lexicographer at Merriam-Webster and the author of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries. More
