Early Modern Notes

Olivia Smith and Daisy Hildyard host Carnivalesque LXX, an early modern edition of the festival, at Airs, Waters, Places on Monday 24 January. You can nominate the best in early modern history blogging since late November via e-mail to airswatersplaces *@*gmail*.*com , in comments here , or via the form.

Sarah Bakewell,"Lives of the Philosophers, Warts and All" reviews James Miller's Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche and Susan Neiman,"What It All Means" reviews Hubert Dreyfus's and Sean Dorrance Kelly's All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age for the NYT, 20 January.

Saul Frampton,"Montaigne and the macaques," Guardian, 22 January, draws on research for his recent book, When I Am Playing With My Cat, How Do I Know She Is Not Playing With Me? Montaigne and Being in Touch With Life.

Michael Dirda,"Exploring the elusive life of a poet and politician," Washington Post, 20 January, reviews Nigel Smith's Andrew Marvell: The Chameleon.

Last week, I linked to Chris Wright's"Measuring hell: Was modern physics born in the Inferno?" Boston Globe, 9 January. For an antidote, see: Thony Christie,"The Blatherings of Mr. Wrong," Renaissance Mathematicus, 22 January.