Whitney Rakich

Whitney Rakich

Contributor

Whitney Rakich is a writing tutor and fellow at Yale University and an Assistant Professor at Midland College. She received her PhD in American Studies from the University of New Mexico. Her current research focuses on crime, disease, and economics in Philadelphia in the 1790s.

Clio Reads

The “Textile Memoir”: A Review of Threads of Life by Clare Hunter

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I read this beautiful book as slowly as possible because I desperately did not want it to end. Part memoir and part history, Clare Hunter’s Threads of Life: A History of the World Through The Eye of A Needle (Abrams Press, 2019) is a gorgeous exploration of needlework in its contemporary and historical context that… Read more →

Clio Reads

“Our Dogged and Deadly Archnemesis”: A Review of Timothy C. Winegard’s The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator

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In 2015, mosquito-borne pathogens caused approximately 830,000 deaths worldwide. Malaria alone killed 435,000 people in 2017. Statistical extrapolations suggest that mosquito-borne viruses and parasites have killed roughly half of all humans who have ever lived.1 While yellow fever, dengue, and malaria have long been the most virulent of these diseases, newer zoonotics (diseases transmitted from… Read more →