It’s National Card & Letter Writing Month (🎉), and Metafilter just drew my attention to the American Library Association’s letter-themed games list, from which I learned of the upcoming Curios: Albrecht Manor: “an epistolary horror mystery experience”!
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The Best Photos and Videos of the 2024 Solar Eclipse
The Function of Colour in Factories, Schools & Hospitals (1930)
Diary Comics, Dec. 6-8
It’s another Thursday Afternoon With Edith, and here are a few more journal comics from back in December, when I was guest-editing this site and gearing up to have a baby!
What Are the Odds?
Ok, one last post about the total solar eclipse and then I’m done talking about it. (Maybe.)
There are so many mind-blowing things about eclipses but the one I can’t stop thinking about is the nearly impossible coincidence that the sun and the moon are the same relative size in the sky. If the moon were a little bit smaller or farther away, we wouldn’t have total eclipses where you can look directly at the sun, see the corona, the sky goes dark, you see a sunset effect all around the horizon, etc. That is some spooky magical shit. Ted Underwood put it this way:
Random accident that the moon and sun are the same apparent size here. If we had interstellar tourism, this is the One Thing that everyone would know about the Earth, and when they visited they wouldn’t want to see anything else. “We also have museums?” we’d say.
The moon is slowly drifting away from the Earth and total eclipses will gradually get rarer and rarer until, hundreds of millions of years from now, they will stop completely.1 That we’re all here right now, getting to experience this magical thing? Like, what?! If a science fiction writer made this up for a story, we’d say it’s too much.
And yet, for me at least, the coincidences don’t stop there.
When I saw my first total eclipse in 2017, we had to drive for 3.5 hours through three different rainstorms to find some clear skies. When we finally stopped, 40 minutes before totality, it was in a town so small that it’s not even called a town anymore: Rayville, Missouri. Yep, we found the sun in Rayville. What are the odds?
And then this year, on April 8th, the path of totality went right over my house in Vermont. In the past 70 years in Vermont prior to 2024, it’s been overcast about 50% of the time and only mostly sunny in 13 of those years. This year? Not a cloud in the sky when I woke up Monday morning.
I watched with a group of people in a big field in Colchester, including my friend Caroline and her dog, Stella (a name derived from the Latin word for star). There were a bunch of other groups watching in the field too and after totality had thrilled us all, they trickled back to their cars and homes. Our group stayed and I watched the last little bit of the moon slip past the sun through my telescope — it was officially over.
A large nearby group of folks with a couple of dogs left shortly after that. One of the dogs came over for a sniff and one of our party asked the guy what the dog’s name was. “Luna.”
And then Luna departed.
Seriously, what are the odds?
Eclipse photo above taken by my friend Mouser, with whom I witnessed the 2017 eclipse. It’s worth looking at large.
- I am sure, hundreds of millions of years ago, when the moon was closer to the Earth, total eclipses were a whole other level of whoaaaaa — lasting for 10-20 minutes at a time, completely blocking out any light from the sun, total darkness all around, etc.↩
It works! Three men stranded on a tiny Pacific island for more than a week were rescued after the Coast Guard spotted “HELP” written out on the beach in palm leaves. (A similar rescue from the same island happened in 2020 — “SOS” that time.)
How to Be a Climate Activist Even Though You’re Too Shy to Interrupt Anything. “You want to add your voice to the movement, make ‘good trouble,’ and stand for something for once in your goddamn life, but, unfortunately, you’re an introvert.”
I’m the Draft List at This Brewery and No, You Can’t Have a Light Beer. “Sure, we made a ‘normal’ IPA once. But then we were like, why make a beer that’s enjoyable to drink when we could make a beer that’s not?”
The Pyramids of Giza, Shrouded in Mist
Wonderful shots of the pyramids of Giza by Egyptian photographer Karim Amr. From a caption on one of his photos three years ago:
I’m a 21 years old photographer you can see a lot of photos I share at the pyramids cause I just live near the pyramids so it’s easy for me to go and shoot there. I started doing photography to share my thoughts with others it’s how I express my feelings it’s also my escape from life. Life is tough and not easy for some of us and you got to find your place in this world.
Prints of his photos are available and you can follow his work on Instagram.
Capricious social media algorithms are modern-day Greek gods: “Oh my crops failed and my daughter died so that means Athena is angry — maybe??! … Just let us see posts from people we follow instead of telling us we’re praying to the wrong god.”
“Men who say they are pro-life and want to reduce or eliminate abortion are lying. They don’t care about abortion at all, they simply want to control women.” (BTW, I got a vasectomy, it’s great, would recommend, A+.)
The Function of Colour in Factories, Schools & Hospitals (1930)
If you’re looking for some color palette inspiration, check out these scans from The Function of Colour in Factories, Schools & Hospitals (1930). Which is presumably a book? Whatever…the precision and colors of these illustrations are marvelous.
Adam Moss and the Creative Process
When I quit my magazine job, I decided to try my hand as an artist. … I got frustrated easily and gave up easily, never knowing when to persevere or surrender. …
My curiosity is earthbound: Where do [artists] begin, and what do they do next, and when do they know they are finished? And more crucially: What do they do when they lose faith? Do they lose faith?
In an adaptation from his new book, The Work of Art: How Something Comes From Nothing, former New York magazine editor Adam Moss shares his interviews with Kara Walker, Louise Glück, and Cheryl Pope, about their respective creative processes [Vulture]. My favorite part is the intro, though, where he talks about his own process (“that was the beginning of my torment”).
I’m hoping the answer to the “persevere or surrender” question is in there very explicitly, by the way!
A map of the “foreign” origins of our global diet. “You cannot walk on water or raise the dead. But you can do something that Jesus never did: eat a banana.” (Or tomatoes, potatoes, or chocolate.)
The saga of the Coyote vs. Acme movie and what it says about today’s overly complex media landscape. “Millions of dollars and thousands of hours went into creating something that could simply vanish into accounting.”
I loved reading through this social history of restaurants in NYC — basically who ate where and when. “The restaurants here were great not because of what they were but because of who we were and who we became while we were there.”
What Happens If We Do Nothing About the Climate Crisis?
Let’s say the countries of the world most responsible for the changing climate continue to drag their feet on doing something about it. What is the world going to look like in 20 or 30 or 80 years? This TED-Ed video describes that bleak potential future.
Reports on heatwaves and wildfires regularly fill the evening news. Summer days exceed 40 degrees in London and 45 degrees in Delhi, as extreme heat waves are now 8 to 9 times more common. These high temperatures prompt widespread blackouts, as power grids struggle to keep up with the energy demands needed to properly cool homes. Ambulance sirens blare through the night, carrying patients suffering from heatstroke, dehydration, and exhaustion. The southwestern United States, southern Africa, and eastern Australia experience longer, more frequent, and more severe droughts.
Meanwhile, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Japan face more frequent heavy rainfall as rising temperatures cause water to evaporate faster, and trap more water in the atmosphere. As the weather becomes more erratic, some communities are unable to keep pace with rebuilding what’s constantly destroyed.
(via open culture)
A new “less competitive” version of Scrabble is coming soon. “Younger people, Gen Z people…want a game where you can simply enjoy language, words, being together and having fun creating words.”
New Japanese anger management technique just dropped: “Writing down your reaction to a negative incident on a piece of paper and then shredding it, or scrunching it into a ball and throwing it in the bin, gets rid of anger.”
Eclipse COMPLAINTS?
Okay, yes, the eclipse was pretty cool, but we weren’t in the path of totality (we were at like 96%), so I didn’t have the Transcendent Experience that some have described. I mean, it was definitely neat. And we did get cute pictures. And it does sort of feel like a little gremlin has been set loose in my soul. But my neck was also sore the day after. Worth it???
The Climate Charts Are Not Okay. “The charts are hilariously underpowered attempts to depict just how out-of-balance we have rendered the world.”
Sherwood has a really interesting & bloggy front page for a news site. Punchy & heavy on images like social media. I feel like this sort of thing rhymes with what I’m trying to do with the ol’ dot org.
The Design of Books: An Explainer for Authors, Editors, Agents, and Other Curious Readers. That’s me! I am curious about the design of books! (Seriously tho, this looks great.)
David Lynch: Depression Kills Creativity
David Lynch is not having any of that “you need to struggle or be tortured in order to be creative” stuff. In this video compilation, the director talks about how poor mental health inhibits art & creativity.
It stands to reason: the more you suffer, the less you want to create. If you’re truly depressed, they say you can’t even get out of bed, let alone create. It occupies the whole brain, poisons the artist, poisons the environment; little room for creativity.
Open Culture has more on how Lynch uses transcendental meditation to improve his mental health…and a great anecdote about the one time Lynch tried therapy:
In one Charlie Rose interview, a clip from which appears in the video, he even tells of the time he went to therapy. The beginning of this story makes it in, but not the end: Lynch asked his new therapist “straight out, right up front, ‘Could this process that we’re going to go through affect creativity?’ And he said, ‘David, I have to be honest with you, it could” — whereupon Lynch shook the man’s hand and walked right back out the door.
Finally: an answer to Aaron’s question about the confusing freezer knob: do you turn it clockwise or counterclockwise for colder? “The knob’s designer should feel bad!”
Hank Green lost his hair during chemotherapy and it grew back curly. Turns out this is a thing that happens to many people: chemo curls!
Amanda, There Is No Audience
The writer Amanda Fortini tweeted something a couple weeks ago that I haven’t stopped thinking about:
Years ago, when I was in my 20s, a bold and artistically daring older friend who has since passed on gave me what I often think was the best advice I have ever gotten. I was worrying what ‘people would think’ of a decision I had made, and she said, “Amanda, There is no audience.”
The tweet went viral, so this probably isn’t news to a lot of readers. But I’ve been saying it to myself ever since: Amanda, there is no audience. Somehow, for a few seconds at a time, it makes sense to me on a very deep level. The “Amanda” part seems essential, too, for whatever reason.
“Buying a soccer club is probably one of the worst investments you can make.” A group of 140 Americans bought a third-tier Danish football club called Akademisk Boldklub. Niels Bohr was the club’s keeper back in the day!
As food service in US prisons gets outsourced, quantity and quality is sacrificed in the name of profit. “It’s not uncommon for a day’s worth of food to be a one bologna sandwich, one cheese sandwich and a few crackers.”
The Best Photos and Videos of the 2024 Solar Eclipse
Well, the total solar eclipse was once again completely awesome. I didn’t have to go chasing all over tarnation this time, the telescope worked out amazingly well, and I got to share it with a bunch of first-timers, both in-person and via text. I’m going to share some thoughts, photos, and videos from others around the internet in an even bloggier fashion than usual. Here we go.
My pal Noah Kalina got one of my favorite shots of the day (see also + prints are available):
Gobsmacking shot from Rami Ammoun…it’s a blend of multiple exposures so you can see the sun and moon at the same time. Love this shot.
And another stunner from Andrew McCarthy:
Ryan Cox got some great shots of the solar prominences during totality.
Quick solar prominence explainer interlude: if you had a clear look at totality, you may have noticed some orange bits poking out around the moon. NASA: What is a solar prominence?
A solar prominence (also known as a filament when viewed against the solar disk) is a large, bright feature extending outward from the Sun’s surface. Prominences are anchored to the Sun’s surface in the photosphere, and extend outwards into the Sun’s hot outer atmosphere, called the corona. A prominence forms over timescales of about a day, and stable prominences may persist in the corona for several months, looping hundreds of thousands of miles into space. Scientists are still researching how and why prominences are formed.
The red-glowing looped material is plasma, a hot gas comprised of electrically charged hydrogen and helium. The prominence plasma flows along a tangled and twisted structure of magnetic fields generated by the sun’s internal dynamo. An erupting prominence occurs when such a structure becomes unstable and bursts outward, releasing the plasma.
A timelapse video of totality from Scientific American:
Thomas Fuchs caught some sunspots through his telescope during the partial eclipse. (We saw these through our ‘scope as well.)
Quick sunspot explainer interlude. NASA: What exactly is a sunspot?
A sunspot is simply a region on the surface of the sun-called the photosphere-that is temporarily cool and dark compared to surrounding regions. Solar measurements reveal that the average surface temperature of the sun is 6000° Celsius and that sunspots are about 1500° Celsius cooler than the area surrounding them (still very hot), and can last anywhere from a few hours to a few months. Sunspots expand and contract as they move across the surface of the sun and can be as large as 80,000 km in diameter.
Sunspots are magnetic regions on the sun with magnetic field strengths thousands of times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field, and often appear in pairs that are aligned in an east-west direction. One set will have a positive or north magnetic field while the other set will have a negative or south magnetic field. The field is strongest in the darker parts of the sunspots — called the umbra. The field is weaker and more horizontal in the lighter part-the penumbra. Overall, sunspots have a magnetic field that is about 1000 times stronger than the surrounding photosphere.
This Instagram account has a lovingly assembled collection of solar eclipse stamps from around the world (Aruba, Bhutan, Chile, Romania, Kenya, and even North Korea).
A NY Times timelapse: See the Total Solar Eclipse’s Shadow From Space (assembled from NASA and NOAA satellite imagery).
Great solar prominences on this shot from Notorious RBMK. Wow:
A timelapse video from Ariel Waldman of totality in Mazatlán. You really get a sense of the eclipse as a passing shadow from this.
Incredible “tiny planet” panorama timelapse by Matt Biddulph. Here’s a still frame during totality:
The 8 types of eclipse photo from XKCD.
The view of the eclipse from the International Space Station.
More photos from The Dammich, fotoelliott, max GORDON, good thread of photos, and photo round-ups from PetaPixel, New Scientist, BBC Science Focus, Mashable, Associated Press, and Wired.
Video from Nate Luebbe of the moment of totality, with Baily’s beads and solar prominences.
This is a fake. Super super cool looking, but a fake. (Update: not quite a fake, just a really badly enhanced version of this composite HDR photo.) And I’m not sure I entirely trust the veracity of the trending search results for “why do my eyes hurt” but here it is anyway.
Earth Will Have Its Last Total Solar Eclipse in About 600 Million Years:
Total solar eclipses occur because the moon and the sun have the same apparent size in Earth’s sky — the sun is about 400 times wider than the moon, but the moon is about 400 times closer.
But the moon is slowly moving away from Earth by about 1-1/2 inches (4 centimeters) per year, according to the NASA statement. As a result, total solar eclipses will cease to exist in the very distant future, because the apparent size of the moon in Earth’s sky will be too small to cover the sun completely.
“Over time, the number and frequency of total solar eclipses will decrease,” Vondrak said in the statement. “About 600 million years from now, Earth will experience the beauty and drama of a total solar eclipse for the last time.”
If you want to get a headstart on trip planning, the next eclipse is going to be in Greenland, Iceland, and Spain on August 12, 2026. Cloud cover looks most favorable in Spain.
Ok, that’s all for now. Depending on what else I come across, I might update this post periodically throughout the day. I know some of you who were lucky enough to see the total eclipse shared your experiences in the comments of yesterday’s post but feel free to do so here as well.
It’s Eclipse Day!
Hey, gang. Today is the solar eclipse, it’s supposed to be mostly sunny here in Colchester, VT, we’ve got 3 minutes and 16 seconds of totality to enjoy, and I built a solar filter for my telescope (and binoculars!), so kottke.org is going to take the day off. Edith and I will see you back here tomorrow.
In the meantime, are you doing anything for the eclipse? Anyone got any crazy camera/telescope setups? Do you think Instagram is going to crash this afternoon? Will I completely lose my mind if a cloud drifts in front of the sun today at 3:26pm ET? Is it a coincidence or a miracle that we happen to be alive during the relatively brief period of time when the moon almost exactly covers the sun, resulting in total solar eclipses? Could you imagine if the eclipse somehow doesn’t happen today??!
A total solar eclipse that occurred on July 16, 790 was recorded in hieroglyphs on a Mayan monument (eclipse map). “This find has frequently been proposed as a way to establish a correlation between the Maya Calendar and the Julian Calendar.”
Vintage Eclipse Glasses From the 1932 Eclipse
From the Center for Research on Vermont at UVM, a pair of eclipse glasses from 1932. I found a product listing for these — they were marketed as the Eclipse-O-Scope and sold for 10¢.
VPR’s Nina Keck recently interviewed Floyd Van Alstyne, who is currently 104 but was 12 years old during the 1932 eclipse:
KECK: It was in the middle of the depression, he reminds me. And while he learned about the eclipse in his one-room schoolhouse, he doesn’t recall too much hoopla surrounding it.
F VAN ALSTYNE: I don’t know. We didn’t think much about general things in those days like they do now. Or we thought about minding their own business, I guess.
(thx, caroline)
What is everyone using for eclipse maps? I’ve been using this one from the National Solar Observatory. There’s also the NASA map, this one, and NYT’s cloud cover map.
I used Shadowmap to help a friend find a good viewing spot for the eclipse — it shows the sun’s position in the sky on a 3D map.
Fiction-Inspired Travel?
Has a novel ever made you desperate to travel somewhere? I’m reading The Historian, and I’m now dying to visit Eastern Europe. I want to see the Danube, visit Istanbul, and spend weeks in Dubrovnik. And, okay, maybe visit the monastery on an island in the middle of Lake Snagov! (Map of the Danube via wikivoyage.) Anyone else?
A Japanese economics professor asserts that if a law requiring spouses to have the same surname isn’t changed, every Japanese person will have a surname of “Sato” by 2531. (Hunch: this needs some factchecking.)
Film Footage of a Total Solar Eclipse from 1900
In 1900, celebrated magician (and astronomy enthusiast) Nevil Maskelyne travelled to North Carolina to film a solar eclipse on May 28, 1900. The Royal Astronomical Society and the British Film Institute reckon this is “the first surviving astronomical film in the world”.
In 1898 he travelled to India to photograph an eclipse. He succeeded but the film can was stolen on his return journey home.
It was not an easy feat to film. Maskelyne had to make a special telescopic adapter for his camera to capture the event. This is the only film by Maskelyne that we know to have survived.
The original film fragment held in The Royal Astronomical Society’s archive has been painstakingly scanned and restored in 4K by conservation experts at the BFI National Archive, who have reassembled and retimed the film frame by frame. The film is part of BFI Player’s recently released Victorian Film collection, viewers are now able to experience this first film of a solar eclipse since the event was originally captured over a century ago.
(via boing boing)
Crazy finish to the Chelsea / Man United match yesterday. “Cold” Palmer tied and then won it deep into added time…after some Chelsea fans had, perhaps understandably, already left. Always stay — there might be an end credits scene!
A magnitude 4.8 earthquake rattled New Jersey this morning around 10:23am. I felt it up here in Vermont too — just a little shimmy that lasted for maybe 8-9 seconds. April blizzard, earthquake, eclipse…all perfectly normal stuff going on here.
I was waiting for this: Tressie McMillan Cottom on Beyoncé’s genre-busting Cowboy Carter. “The only honest answer is that country music is everything she sings about minus the Black woman singing it.”
The Sound of Knitting
The above comes across as almost a parody of itself — halfway through, I thought This could be an SNL sketch! — but it’s also delightful. It’s a trailer for The Sound of Knitting, “an evening where classical music and knitting merge.” The popular designers and podcasters Arne & Carlos teamed up with the Norwegian string instrument group (heh) Trondheimsolistene to make a concert/tutorial/behind-the-scenes knitting video, available for purchase. In addition to featuring knitting-friendly music, the video includes a tour of the Norwegian municipality of Selbu, famous for its gorgeous mittens, as well as a virtual class on how to knit those mittens. It all seems lovely, although I confess I was slightly disappointed that “the sound of knitting” wasn’t an ASMR video of needles clicking, although I’m sure that’s out there, too. I mean, I know it is because I’ve seen it.
Plus, as a recent NY Times story outlined, handwork is good for the brain.
New Jolene Lyrics
I’ve always been intrigued by the “Jolene” lyrics (are they mature or are they insane?), so I was excited to hear Beyoncé’s version. Ultimately those lyrics didn’t really speak to me, but then I came across novelist Sonora Jha’s twist on the “Jolene” lyrics on Instagram, and I felt an itch had been scratched. I’ve transcribed those lyrics below — her original post is here.
(With apologies to Dolly and Beyoncé)
Jolene Jolene Jolene Jolene
I’m watchin’ you move in on my man
Jolene Jolene Jolene Jolene
I’m sayin you should say “I think I can”
You’re beautiful beyond compare
I hope you’ll pardon while I stare
Just wonderin’ what moisturizer you wear, Jolene
But good for you, oh good for you
You can have my man and my children too
Jolene
Don’t get me wrong, I love my man I love those kids as hard I can
But some days I could just, you know what I mean
Jolene
And if my man’s that easy to take
You can have him and also eat your cake Jolene
Jolene Jolene Jolene Jolene
I’m livin’ my best life and wish the same for you
Jolene
You freed up my every other weekend
For me to spend with my supercool friends
I love how you stepmom my kids, Jolene
I hope he’s showerin’ love on you
The way I tried to teach him to
You’re welcome, you’re welcome, you Queen Jolene
You say you don’t want him no more
But please don’t leave him at my door
Just tell me where to Venmo you, Jolene
Jolene Jolene Jolene Jolene
You could have your choice of men
And I’m wonderin’ if I’ll bother to love again
So l’II do me and you do you Jolene
Jolene Jolene Jolene Jolene
The kids are grown and happy too
I love how you found a better boo
Let’s all just move on, okay, please, Jolene
Diary Comics, Dec. 3-5
Here are some more comics from when I was guest-blogging here last fall! (Previously.) Should I be sharing these in a newsletter again? I don’t know, maybe so!
Entrepreneurial note: I sell cards on Etsy!
Bad news about beloved Trader Joe’s: The company “outsources inspiration for new products by targeting emerging brands under the guise of recruiting them to manufacture private-label items.” More like Pirate Joe’s, amirite?
The instructor of a course for nervous flyers recommends a “breathe and squeeze” technique for battling flight anxiety. “It’s perfectly normal. Let’s all make a conscious decision to squeeze our buttocks.”
Scientists have created the largest 3D map of our universe to date and there are “tantalizing hints” in the data that suggest that dark matter may not be constant after all.
Total Eclipse of the Heart, Literal Video Version
This video is more than 10 years old, but I hadn’t seen it before: a version of Bonnie Tyler’s music video for Total Eclipse of the Heart where the lyrics describe what we literally see.
Pan the room
Random use of candles, empty bottles, and cloth,
and can you see me through this fan?Slo-mo dove
Creepy doll, a window, and what looks like a bathrobe.
Then, a dim-lit shot of dangling balls.Metaphooor?
(via aaron)
This Woman Deconstructs 100-Year-Old Books To Restore Them
Sophia Bogle is an expert at restoring old books and I was riveted by this video of her taking viewers through the deconstruction and restoration process, including a tour of her workshop and some of the tools she uses (e.g. a repair knife she designed herself to resemble a fingertip).
But reader, I gasped when she signed her work…I don’t think I could do that! (via boing boing)
Farm Animal Family Photos
Rob MacInnis takes these great family photos of farm animals. I mean, gold medal to anyone who can actually get a chicken, dog, goat, sheep, cow, and horse to pose together like that. I also like his photo of this charming sheep.
You can check out more of his work on Instagram and his website. (via present & correct)
Crows are on the short list of animals that have domesticated humans. “We were the crow vending machine, I realized, and the birds had mastered the art of manipulating us for rewards.”
“A 600-Year-Old Blueprint for Weathering Climate Change”
This is a fascinating article by Kathleen DuVal about how climate change (including the Little Ice Age) affected social and political structures in North America in the 13th and 14th centuries.
But then the climate reversed itself. In response, Native North American societies developed a deep distrust of the centralization, hierarchy, and inequality of the previous era, which they blamed for the famines and disruptions that had hit cities hard. They turned away from omnipotent leaders and the cities they ruled, and built new, smaller-scale ways of living, probably based in part on how their distant ancestors lived.
While Europeans reacted to the Little Ice Age by centralizing and militarizing under hereditary absolute monarchs, Native Americans went in a decidedly different direction:
The cities that Native Americans left behind during the Little Ice Age-ruins such as those at Chaco Canyon and Cahokia-led European explorers and modern archaeologists alike to imagine societal collapse and the tragic loss of a golden age. But oral histories from the generations that followed the cities’ demise generally described what came later as better. Smaller communities allowed for more sustainable economies. Determined not to depend on one source of sustenance, people supplemented their farming with increased hunting, fishing, and gathering. They expanded existing networks of trade, carrying large amounts of goods all across the continent in dugout canoes and on trading roads; these routes provided a variety of products in good times and a safety net when drought or other disasters stressed supplies. They developed societies that encouraged balance and consensus, in part to mitigate the problems caused by their changing climate.
Being an adult in the 21st century is the continual discovery of things you never learned in school — how climate change has altered the course of history and changed our societies was not adequately represented in my history classes. (See, for example, how climate change played a role in Brexit.)
DuVal’s article is excerpted from her upcoming book, Native Nations: A Millennium in North America (Bookshop), which sounds really interesting:
A millennium ago, North American cities rivaled urban centers around the world in size. Then, following a period of climate change and instability, numerous smaller nations emerged, moving away from rather than toward urbanization. From this urban past, egalitarian government structures, diplomacy, and complex economies spread across North America. So, when Europeans showed up in the sixteenth century, they encountered societies they did not understand-those having developed differently from their own-and whose power they often underestimated.
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