Series: Columbiana

For nearly a thousand years, the city of Tharros in western Sardinia was central to trade routes and cultural exchange, a hub connecting North Africa, the Balearic Islands, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Its earliest ruins, dating from the seventh century BCE, were likely constructed by Punic settlers from North Africa. The Carthaginians built temples and tombs; the Romans, who arrived...

Transfigured New York presents conversations with iconic, genre-bending artists who shaped the sounds of experimental movements like no wave, avant-jazz, and electronic music. As an undergrad in the 1980s, Brooke Wentz hosted the show Transfigured Night on Columbia University's WKCR-FM, discussing art and ideas with avant-garde music luminaries. She unearths these candid interviews—heard before only when first broadcast—from cassettes and...

Notre-Dame of Amiens is one of the great Gothic cathedrals. Its construction began in 1220, and artistic production in the Gothic mode lasted well into the sixteenth century. In this magisterial chronicle, Stephen Murray invites readers to see the cathedral as more than just a thing of the past: it is a living document of medieval Christian society that endures...