The new issue of Lapham’s Quarterly, Energy, is now available online and as a digital edition to subscribers. With original essays by Richard Cohen, Marc Da Costa, and Tom Roston; Voices in Time contributions by Joan Didion, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Marie Curie, and Kenzaburo Oe; and art by Michelangelo, Ogata Korin, Édouard Manet, and others.
Program Notes | Among the Contributors
Map | Power Before Petroleum
Preamble | Lewis H. Lapham, Power Outage
VOICES IN TIME
Ignition
2022: Brighton | Arianne Shahvisi
1752: Philadelphia | Benjamin Franklin
60 bc: Rome | Lucretius
1898: Paris | Marie Curie
1963: Kentucky | Harry M. Caudill
1837: New York City | John King
c. 1260: Europe | Saint Albertus Magnus
c. 1843: Avoyelles Parish, LA | Solomon Northup
c. 550 bc: Uz | Book of Job
c. 848: Baghdad | Abu Mashar
1891: New York City | Nikola Tesla
1943: Dublin | Erwin Schrodinger
1842: Lowell, MA | Eliza Jane Cate
1865: Manchester | William Stanley Jevons
1985: Oakland, CA | Jose Canseco
1492: Milan | Leonardo da Vinci
1910: Chicago | Harriet Monroe
1910: New York City | Edward Hungerford
1951: Rangeley, ME | Wilhelm Reich
c. 1530: Rajputana | Mira Bai
1912: New York City | Giacomo Ciamician
c. 1910: Beach City, CA | Upton Sinclair
2021: Palo Alto, CA | Tesla Emergency Response Guide
1849: Berlin | Alexander von Humboldt
c. 1576: Tlatelolco | Bernardino de Sahagún
1998: New York City | Simon Reynolds
c. 370: Constantinople | On Matters of War
1924: Paris | Serge Voronoff
c. 1847: United States | John Dos Passos
c. 1350 bc: Amarna | Akhenaten
1809: Paris | Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
1803: London | Giovanni Aldini
2006: New York City | Donald Antrim
1865: Amherst, MA | Emily Dickinson
Combustion
2022: Davis, CA | Kim Stanley Robinson
1979: Iran | Ryszard Kapuściński
331 bc: Babylon | Plutarch
c. 1885: Lima, OH | Ida M. Tarbell
1959: New York City | Edward Teller
1911: Munich | Wassily Kandinsky
c. 320 bc: Athens | Theophrastus
1737: Cirey | Émilie du Chatelet
c. 990: Persia | Ibn Miskawayh
1936: Hertfordshire | George Orwell
2007: Red Sea | Mohamed Mansour
c. 500 bc: Wu | Sun Tzu
1940: Los Angeles | Mary Inman
c. 350 bc: China | Inward Training
1377: Tiaret | Ibn Khaldun
1992: Geneva | Ken Saro-Wiwa
1949: Shikoku Island | Kenzaburo Oe
1910: Edinburgh | H.G. Wells
1667: Messina | Giovanni Alfonso Borelli
1913: Moscow | Vladimir Mayakovsky
c. 1590: Venice | Moderata Fonte
1936: Alabama | James Agee
1755: Lisbon | Charles Davy
c. 300 bc: Henan | Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine
c. 1081: Dyrrachium | Anna Comnena
1945: Washington, DC | J. Robert Oppenheimer
c. 1911: Baku | Essad Bey
1591: Zhili | Yuan Liaofan
c. 77: Misenum | Pliny the Elder
2014: Beirut | Rabih Alameddine
1788: New York City | Alexander Hamilton
1638: Vesuvius | Athanasius Kircher
1945: Hiroshima | Masuji Ibuse
c. 1540: Antwerp | Karel de Minne
Exhaustion
2019: Atacama Desert | Thea Riofrancos
1588: Aquitaine | Michel de Montaigne
1906: New York City | William James
c. 460 bc: Athens | Aeschylus
1985: Aberdeen | Freeman Dyson
1878: Denver | Maria Mitchell
2012: Santa Barbara, CA | William Ophuls
1611: England | Arthur Standish
1880: Paris | Paul Lafargue
1965: New York City | Loudon Wainwright Jr.
1855: The Netherlands | Alphonse Esquiros
c. 1190: Bury St. Edmunds | Jocelin of Brakelond
1970: Colorado River | Joan Didion
537: Rome | Procopius
c. 250: Luoyang | Ruan Ji
1751: London | Samuel Johnson
1973: New York City | Margaret Mead
1869: Manchester | Friedrich Engels
c. 944: Al-Fustat | Al-Masudi
1934: New York City | Lewis Mumford
c. 122 bc: China | Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn
c. 1880: Hudson Valley | Sarah Ruhl
c. 1385: England | Geoffrey Chaucer
1976: Okpokpo | Tanure Ojaide
1746: Leiden | Pieter van Musschenbroek
1885: Rome | Angelo Mosso
1973: Paris | Ivan Illich
1956: Yangtze River | Mao Zedong
c. 1030: Esfahan | Avicenna
c. 1925: Veracruz | B. Traven
c. 370 bc: Athens | Plato
1994: Nevada | Rebecca Solnit
1790: London | William Blake
1909: Atlantic Ocean | Mohandas K. Gandhi
1980: Ithaca, NY | Carl Sagan
FURTHER REMARKS
Essays
What Is Human Energy? | Richard Cohen
Along the Borderline | Marc Da Costa
Truth Actually | Tom Roston
Departments
Conversations | LNG Allies, Maimonides, Leibniz
Miscellany | Chain Reaction, Fireflies, Curfew
Glossary | Amp, Ohm, Vavoom
Sources | Readings & Art