It was such an honour to be part of this

Geweldig interview met @josephinequinn.bsky.social, hoogleraar Oude Geschiedenis aan Cambridge. Naar aanleiding van haar boek over 4000 jaar geschiedenis van het Westen. Over broederschap, beschavingsdenken en Brexit. Nu wil ik die pil op mijn nachtkastje… www.volkskrant.nl/boeken/de-we...

I seem to have found myself with @chrisbrooke.bsky.social at the Train Bleu again, en route for Italy.

Jo was interviewed by de Volkskrant, who asked about Ptolemy. www.volkskrant.nl/boeken/de-we...

I was so honoured to talk to @empirepoduk.bsky.social about Gaza. Nothing else to say: please listen.

Gondoliers don’t work in the rain

‘Even if the coastline we know is young – its features only relatively stable for the last five or six thousand years – mental traces of earlier configurations survive.’ @josephinequinn.bsky.social on the ancient coast: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Sailors gathered on mid-sea islands like Socotra, three hundred kilometres south of the Arabian coast, where graffiti dating from the second century BCE to the second century CE cover the deep Cave of Hoq with a blizzard of names.’ @josephinequinn.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

I'm on Radio 4 at 10am with @gregjenner.bsky.social and Darren Herriott, who makes Hannibal of Carthage very funny indeed. (Longer version on the @bbcsounds.bsky.social site in the UK, just in case you don't have the radio on.)

A little video teaser of what to expect from our new BBC You’re Dead To Me episode about Hannibal of Carthage, who - as Darren discovered - found incredibly inventive ways to turn animals into weapons! With Professor @josephinequinn.bsky.social

Well this is the highlight of my life so far, thankyou @gregjenner.bsky.social

Just out on my latest Substack, reflections on @josephinequinn.bsky.social 's brilliant How the World Made the West. Profoundly trashing, in best possible way, with mountains of evidence, claims of “Western civilisation”. Or any distinct civilisation nataliebennett.substack.com/p/change-eve...

A good bit of "blue humanities" for the dads here from @josephinequinn.bsky.social www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘However much it suited coastal polities to criminalise them, pirates were “fully integrated into ancient economies”, from serving Mediterranean states as mercenaries to stocking the slave markets that kept them going.’ @josephinequinn.bsky.social on the ancient coast: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

I am very pleased to share the conversation I had with the brilliant @moudhy.bsky.social We talk all about ancient Mesopotamia, ancient texts, and much more. Hope everyone enjoys! open.substack.com/pub/convergi...

‘Entrances to the underworld were usually located on the coast, while the highest and lowest of men were buried there, from local heroes to dead fisherfolk.’ @josephinequinn.bsky.social on the ancient coast: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Oh oh www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

‘Blue Humanities has taken over large parts of the academy in the last decade, bringing the human relationship with oceans, rivers, lakes and seas to the top of the scholarly agenda just as those waters gather to end humanity for good.’ @josephinequinn.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Seas are repetitive creatures, working in cycles of tides, migration and climate change, which is normally to say the waxing and waning of the Ice Age. It is the coast that creates the past. The ancients knew this.’ @josephinequinn.bsky.social on the ancient coast: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Also in this issue: Ferdinand Mount on tariffs before Trump Barbara Newman on Boccaccio David Renton on the Palestine Action ban Loubna Mrie on the Syrian Alawites @josephinequinn.bsky.social on the ancient coast @jonathancoe.bsky.social on Erik Satie ...

This person claims to be an "ally" yet hasn't cited me in a paper despite it being on a topic I published on once a decade ago

Oh my goodness www.cundillprize.com/news/the-202...

This is the book of the summer for me @princetonupress.bsky.social

I mostly like Belgrade, but it has its monents. (Not shown: a couple of rapturous hours with the ancient collection of the National Museum)

I’ll take the small wins right now - and I’m very grateful to the friends of friends who got into the complex intra-editorial arguments required to change this back.

Thank you @josephinequinn.bsky.social for speaking in Campden #Cotswolds 10th May We strongly recommend HOW THE WORLD MADE THE WEST 👇

Best internship in the world @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/jobs

Josephine Quinn showing how it's done. Death of an Englishman is now required reading on any train ride, don't you know.

On the train to Oxford for Eurovision & family fun, with the brilliant new crime novel from @annabeerauthor.bsky.social DEATH OF AN ENGLISHMAN featuring bikes, trains, the best kind of dead dons, and a LITERARY DETECTIVE. It is wonderful and hilarious and I am loving it

Nice day for a stroll through central London 🇮🇪 🇵🇸 solidarity

Oh my God, there’s already a book called American Pope… AND HE’S ALSO CALLED POPE LEO XIV!!!!??!

This looks like it's really going to be quite the volume (Writing, Enslavement, and Power in the Roman Mediterranean: 100 BCE – 300 CE. Edited by @jeremiahcoogan.bsky.social , @illdottore.bsky.social , and @candidamoss.bsky.social, forthcoming OUP).

Archaeologists worshipping a cat (as they should). I think the second from left is Vasile Pârvan.

Absurdly @eurostarnews.bsky.social is now making all passengers from Paris remove laptops and all tablets from all baggage before going through security. No warning in advance so everyone is taking hours to go through their suitcases finding it all. I paid 3-4 times the price of a flight for this.

This is the most thought-provoking and fun book I’ve read for a long time - hurrah for @walterscheidel.bsky.social and highly recommended.

Race is a social construct. But what does that mean, and why do we say this? An explainer, in the wake of Trump being racist and wrong (pt 675) www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Days of acqua alta in Venice - lots of rain and a full moon - but much better than it used to be before Mose and the new valves in Piazza S.Marco, and the high walkways multitask when the sun comes out.

Gondoliers. Sponsored by Big Wool.

Come and Classics at Cambridge this May!

The NEH hammer has come down on the group project led by Cliff Ando to produce a new edition of Roman Statutes. Most of the team is composed of established scholars in secure jobs, but the funding was also supporting a full-time postdoctoral fellow whose work is *essential* for the project. 1/2

If you missed @josephinequinn.bsky.social in Madrid yesterday she'll be telling us HOW THE WORLD MADE THE WEST in Chipping Campden 12noon 10 May . Get your tcikets here: www.campdenmayfestivals.co.uk/literature/e...

Book launch in Madrid last night: huge fun and huge thanks to @isamellen.bsky.social, Ruben Montoyo, and the lovely people at the Casa de Fieras and @editorialcritica.bsky.social

Please don't undercut other writers. It's hard enough out there without people offering to turn in a completely blank script for less than the industry standard, which is sixteen million dollars.

He entrevistado a @josephinequinn.bsky.social, historiadora, especialista en griegos, romanos y fenicios, y que acaba de publicar en español un libro que desmonta mitos: “Hablar de civilizaciones es una forma artificial de pensar sobre el mundo", me dice. www.eldiario.es/128_ba3bd9?u...

Neue @deutschebahn.com​-Kampagne steht. 😉👍

this is actually their refund/rebooking policy

This is an absolutely insane thing to write on an ad in a freaking airport. 😂

Last American Baked Good for the duration of the administration and I think it has to be a muffin the size of my head