Today we present a delightfully eyebrow‑raising volume: Flagellation & the Flagellants: A History of the Rod in All Countries… by the Rev. Wm. M. Cooper (published by William Reeves). Despite its serious‑sounding title, this is no dry social history — it’s a globe‑trotting, whip‑crackingly vivid survey of whipping through the ages. Cooper (a pseudonym for James Glass Bertram) doesn’t shy away from the oddest corners: there are chapters on flagellation among Jews, the Romans, Jesuits, monasteries

Ethan Tapper on Instagram: "What do gray birch trees have to do with forest’s history — and beavers?? There are some tree species whose presence can give us general clues about a forest’s history — and then there are a few species that tell us something very specific. One of these latter species is gray birch (Betula populifolia). Gray birch is a “pioneer” tree species, and a very short-lived one — usually living up to just 20 years old — and in my experience it ONLY grows in abandoned fields an