Hottentot Venus

The Curious in Ecstasy or Shoelaces, by Louis François Charon, 1815. Satire of English fascination with South African–born Saartjie Baartman, who was exhibited under the name Hottentot Venus. The British Museum, London.

Foreigners

Volume VIII, Number 1 | winter 2015

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Preamble

Them

By Lewis H. Lapham

When we talk about the foreign, the question becomes one of us versus them. But in the end, is one just the opposite side of the other?

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Miscellany

In July 1947, a U.S. Army spokesman in Roswell, New Mexico, issued a press release to announce that the military had found a “flying disc” that had landed at a ranch near an air base. “It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field,” according to the army, “and subsequently loaned to higher headquarters.” There were no further public statements about the matter.

France has neither winter, summer, nor morals—apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.

—Mark Twain, 1879
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Lapham’sDaily

Roundel with allegorical scene of book burning, North Netherlandish, c. 1520.

The World in Time

Eric Berkowitz

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of Dangerous Ideas: A Brief History of Censorship in the West, from the Ancients to Fake News. More