What We Are Reading Today: Revolutionary Lives

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Updated 10 August 2020
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What We Are Reading Today: Revolutionary Lives

Author: Lauren Arrington

Constance Markievicz (1868–1927), born to the privileged Protestant upper class in Ireland, embraced suffrage before scandalously leaving for a bohemian life in London and then Paris. She would become known for her roles as politician and Irish revolutionary nationalist.
Her husband, Casimir Dunin Markievicz (1874–1932), a painter, playwright, and theater director, was a Polish noble who would eventually join the Russian imperial army to fight on behalf of Polish freedom during World War I.
Revolutionary Lives offers the first dual biography of these two prominent European activists and artists.
Tracing the Markieviczes’ entwined and impassioned trajectories, biographer Lauren Arrington sheds light on the avant-garde cultures of London, Paris, and Dublin, and the rise of anti-imperialism at the turn of the 20th century.
Drawing from new archival material, including previously untranslated newspaper articles, Arrington explores the interests and concerns of Europeans invested in suffrage, socialism, and nationhood.


What We Are Reading Today: ‘What We Inherit’

Updated 04 February 2026
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What We Are Reading Today: ‘What We Inherit’

Over the past decade, the field of human genetics has produced an extraordinary range of discoveries—including the refinement of polygenic scores, which use a person’s DNA to estimate their likelihood of developing a trait or disease.

But are these new technologies ready to leave the research lab and be deployed in schools, fertility clinics, and the wider world? “In What We Inherit,” Sam Trejo and Daphne Martschenko offer different perspectives on the societal impact of the rapidly unfolding DNA revolution.