‘Moby-Dick’ inspired the Warner Brothers film starring Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab – and perhaps can inspire readers today amid the climate crisis.
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Melville’s epic novel about life aboard a wayward whaling ship holds lessons for the climate crisis today.
Harriet Jacobs, writer of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
Wikimedia
The problems and ideologies that define American culture were formed in the 19th century.
It’s a mad world, but some listening to some of the world’s great thinkers might help you make sense of it.
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How to deal with a world that is going a bit off-kilter? Some classic texts can give a few pointers.
An 1870 portrait of Herman Melville painted by Joseph Oriel Eaton.
Houghton Library
While clear-eyed about the country’s injustices, Melville never succumbed to cynicism. On the author’s bicentennial, American readers could use a dose of his ability to fuse realism with idealism.
The young aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville, sketch by an unknown artist.
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University
To mark Independence Day, an Australian perspective on why - 180 years on - Alexis de Tocqueville’s classic political text is a must-read.