He helped forge a movement asserting that scholars must put aside their modern-day assumptions and prejudices to fully understand how people acted and thought in the past.
Reading Rhythms bills itself as a series of “reading parties,” where guests read silently for an hour and chat with strangers about the books they brought. (Just don’t call it a book club.)
John Vaillant, the author of “Fire Weather” (one of our 10 Best Books this year), discusses climate change and the fire that devastated a Canadian petroleum town in 2016.