Quillette Weekly

This week we have a diverse selection of essays for you to peruse, from a tribute to the late American novelist Peter Straub, to an impassioned defence of truth-seeking in the discipline of history. Barbara Kay has penned a touching essay on the young Queen Elizabeth, and you will find an editorial co-signed by all Quillette editors in support of Ukraine.

A few weeks ago we published an article by a young record collector, Max Wilson, about a Wisconsin prison band Upheaval.

Upheaval produced a record which would go on to become one of the most sought after 45rpms of all time. Yet despite this prized record, the incredible story of the band had never been told until Max penned his article for Quillette.

Max recently visited the last remaining survivor of Upheaval, Joe Hayes. Joe doesn't use the internet so Max printed the essay for him.  

If you missed Max's article when it was published, you can read it here. I can promise that you won't be disappointed:

Lost Soul Behind Bars

The untold story of Upheaval, a prison band that recorded one of the most sought-after soul singles of the 1970s.

QuilletteMax Wilson

Until next week,
—Claire

Fiction

Peter Straub, 1943–2022

Farewell to another of the Big Six novelists from the Golden Age of American horror fiction.

QuilletteKevin Mims

Education

Math for Future Scientists: Require Statistics, Not Calculus

The case for ending calculus requirements for science majors.

QuilletteRobert C. Thornett

Activism vs Academia

Child Welfare Is Becoming a Joke

The field is mired in risible theory and impenetrable jargon, and increasingly divorced from concern with the welfare of children.

QuilletteNaomi Schaefer Riley

Never Apologize for Trying to Tell the Truth

Those who repress inconvenient facts or produce fictitious evidence to nourish a politically convenient story are simply not historians.

QuilletteJeffrey Herf

History

The Young Elizabeth, Seen Through a Child’s Eyes

The diaries of Elizabeth’s wartime companion illustrates the special burdens faced by royalty—and Elizabeth’s fitness to bear them

QuilletteBarbara Kay

Politics

Lessons from Hannah Arendt on Arresting Our ‘Flight From Reality’

Fascism, communism, and transhumanism all lure us into rejecting the real human condition in favor of ideological constructs.

QuilletteRoger Berkowitz

Horseshoe Theory Comes to Ukraine

Putin’s Western apologists don’t reflect the usual conflict between Left and Right—but rather comprise an example of both poles making common cause against the center.

QuilletteThe Quillette Editorial Board

From Around the Web

The Man Who Saw America

Olivier Zunz offers a new portrait of America’s most famous French critic, Alexis de Tocqueville.

American PurposeGustav Jönsson