The Best of Lapham’s Quarterly
10+ most popular Lapham’s Quarterly articles, as voted by our community.
A magazine of history and ideas. Our latest issue is Freedom.
Lapham’s Quarterly on Books
Panic at the Library
The sinister history of fumigating “foreign” books.
«bookworm displays a “universal disrespect for almost everything, including arsenic and lead.” »
Choice Reading
Nineteenth-century New York City was filled with books, bibliophilia, and marginalia.
Lapham’s Quarterly on Education
Misdirectives | Ian Altman
A public high school teacher asks why the wrong things cause a fuss in schools.
Lapham’s Quarterly on Food History
Lapham’s Quarterly on History
A Collection of Human Errors
For the rest of the year, Lapham’s Quarterly is running a series on the subject of history and the pleasures, pain, and knowledge that can be found from studying it. For more than fifty issues,…
«elemekten elde edilebilecek zevkler, acı ve bilgiler üzerine bir dizi yayınlıyor . Elliden fazla sayı için, antik çağlardan günümüze katkıda bulunanlar, dostluk, mutluluk, ölüm ve gelecek gibi temalar üzerine binlerce yıla yayılan sohbetlere katıldıla»
Lapham’s Quarterly on Immigration
The Right to Leave
In 1816 an American lawyer named J.F. Dumoulin wrote Thomas Jefferson a letter to thank him for his hospitality during a recent visit to the former president’s Monticello plantation. As a token of…
Lapham’s Quarterly on Language
Studying the Script
China invented the longest lasting and most stable writing system in history. Chinese—the language—as we know it today is almost the same as the first inscriptions from nearly 3,200 years ago. And…
«Its syntax is flexible, the number of characters already substantial—between three thousand and five thousand, all well designed and clear.»
Lapham’s Quarterly on Marriage
Working Arrangement
Marriage as we know it today is a very recent invention—one that has very little in common with the unions of old.
Popular
These are some all-time favorites with Refind users.
Making an Enemy of Luxury
Imagining utopia—and condemning excess—during the Enlightenment.
A Midsummer on Ice
This summer, Lapham’s Quarterly is marking the season with readings on the subject or set during its reign. Check in every Friday until Labor Day to read the latest. In the summer of 1894, Norwegian…
New Look, Same Great Look
Color is among the most challenging aspects of our experience to describe. Spectrophotometers and colorimeters can quantify light waves, yet their measurements have little impact on our feeling for…
A Wiser Sympathy
Science, though a very great and learned lady, does not yet know everything. Her elder sister, Poetry, often sees further and deeper into things than she does. —“Have Plants Intelligence?” All the…
What is Refind?
Every day Refind picks the most relevant links from around the web for you. is one of more than 10k sources we monitor.
How does Refind curate?
It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:
- We monitor 10k+ sources and 1k+ thought leaders on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
- In addition, our users save links from around the web using our Save buttons and our extensions.
- Our algorithm processes 100k+ new links every day and uses external signals to find the most relevant ones, focusing on timeless pieces.
- Our community of active users gets the most relevant links every day, tailored to their interests. They provide feedback via implicit and explicit signals: open, read, listen, share, mark as read, read later, «More/less like this», etc.
- Our algorithm uses these internal signals to refine the selection.
- In addition, we have expert curators who manually curate niche topics.
The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.
How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?
We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.
How many sources does Refind monitor?
We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Can I submit a link?
Indirectly, by using Refind and saving links from outside (e.g., via our extensions).
How can I report a problem?
When you’re logged-in, you can flag any link via the «More» (...) menu. You can also report problems via email to hello@refind.com
Who uses Refind?
200k+ smart people start their day with Refind. To learn something new. To get inspired. To move forward. Our apps have a 4.9/5 rating.
Is Refind free?
Yes, it’s free!
How can I sign up?
Head over to our homepage and sign up by email or with your Twitter or Google account.