Germ theory, which secularized infectious disease, had a side effect: it sacralized epidemiology.
Jill LeporeStages of life are artifacts. Adolescence is a useful contrivance, midlife is a moving target, senior citizens are an interest group, and tweenhood is just plain made up.
Jill LeporeThe world may not be getting better and better, but our devices are getting newer and newer.
Jill LeporeJane Francklyne, born in 1565, had lived for less than a month. She left very little behind. She was buried in the Ecton churchyard, but her father would hardly have paid a carver to engrave so small a stone. If not for the parish register, there would be no record that this Jane Francklyne had ever lived at all. History is what is written and can be found; what isn't saved is lost, sunken and rotted, eaten by the earth.
Jill Lepore