The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, October 16, 1834, by Joseph Mallord William Turner, c. 1835. © The Philadelphia Museum of Art / Art Resource.

Disaster

Volume IX, Number 2 | spring 2016

Miscellany

In order to halt or slow the advance of glaciers, the Tlingit tribe of the northwest coast of North America used to sacrifice dogs and slaves by throwing them into the glacier’s crevasses in the hopes of appeasing the ice spirit.

Once you hear the details of a victory it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.

—Jean-Paul Sartre, 1951