Utterly interesting

In the late 1800s, a group of American and Swedish Christians settled in Jerusalem to await the Second Coming—but ended up documenting Middle Eastern life through thousands of stunning photographs. From Bedouin traditions in the Sinai to Jerusalem’s quiet corners, the American Colony Photo Department captured a world on the brink of change. Discover how their spiritual mission became one of the most remarkable visual records of the region’s past.

Before climate warnings and collapse documentaries, one 19th-century artist painted the entire rise and fall of civilisation on five haunting canvases. Step inside Thomas Cole’s The Course of Empire, a visual prophecy where glory turns to ash and nature always has the last word.

Jacob Riis, “Lodgers in a Crowded Bayard Street Tenement–‘Five Cents a Spot'” In 1890, a book titled How the Other Half Lives  introduced...