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Sam Grinsell

@samgrinsell.bsky.social

970 followers 1.8K following 860 posts

Historian trying to help build better worlds 🇵🇸🌈✊🏳️‍⚧️

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Sam Grinsell @samgrinsell.bsky.social · 18d

Very pleased that my piece 'Urban history as urgent work, an argument for disciplinary promiscuity' has been published in @urbanhistory.bsky.social doi.org/10.1017/S096...
Many thanks to @mctom.bsky.social for organising the roundtable that got these thoughts going back in 2023! #UrbanHist #EnvHums

Urban history as urgent work, an argument for disciplinary promiscuity | Urban History | Cambridge Core

Urban history as urgent work, an argument for disciplinary promiscuity

doi.org

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Reposted by Sam Grinsell

Dr. Vaughn Joy @gvaughnjoy.bsky.social · 3h

PSA: Public Scholars

I'm working on a resources page for our website to help scholars find homes for their op-eds, guest blogs, and otherwise expertise.

If you run a site or podcast that regularly posts such things and would like us to share it as a potential place to pitch, please let me know!

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waltydunlop @waltydunlop.bsky.social · 6h

Do the frogs in Portland know "We All Stand Together"? If not, there's a rather beautiful wee anthem just waiting for them to pick up.

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Emily Herring @emilyherring.bsky.social · 1d

One of my friends recently said "We should all be sitting round a campfire and making sure everyone is OK"

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Wagatwe Wanjuki @wagatwe.com · 6h

my biggest beef with bluesky is that I get way more updates on what Curtis Yarvin or Peter Thiel than anything on the African continent

Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · 12h

What the Twitter takeover did so effectively was fracture the way we get our news. If, for example, I want to get in-depth updates on Sudan I still check in with Twitter as that's where a lot of the biggest accounts are. There's no one-stop shop anymore.

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Josh Westerling @joshwesterling.bsky.social · 2d

Finally got round to reading this, everyone should. It is excellent.

And speak to anyone in their teens if you need convincing that the left is ceding this ideological battleground. Not just on cultural issues, but everything from economic aspiration to ideas of the good life.

Renewal @renewaljournal.bsky.social · 27d

FREE TO READ: Renewal co-editor Jack Jeffrey talks to @profafinlayson.bsky.social about the subcultures of the online right and how they are transforming political communication

renewal.org.uk/articles/the...

The left (still) doesn't understand the internet

Renewal 33.2_Finlayson & JeffreyRenewal 33.2_Finlayson & Jeffrey.pdf161 KBdownload-circle In June 2025, Nigel Farage boasted on Facebook and X that he had more TikTok subscribers than all other 649...

renewal.org.uk

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Sam Grinsell @samgrinsell.bsky.social · 9h

This reminds me of Mark Twain learning to ride a bicycle (would've been a penny farthing or similar as this was before the modern "safety bicycle") and he said people had told him that getting off was the hardest part, whereas he found that actually this came incredibly naturally

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 21h

This two-parter below is exactly why it's hard to make clothes in the United States.

Let's look at how much it costs to produce a button-up shirt in the US. 🧵

Someone on Twitter replies to me: "meh. buy american or stfu."

Two hours later, in a separate thread, the write: "$30 for a single button-up is ridiculous unless it is decent quality silk."

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Sam Grinsell @samgrinsell.bsky.social · 9h

That's so lovely to hear, glad you appreciated 🥰

Sam Grinsell @samgrinsell.bsky.social · 10h

Post a banger that's not in English

youtu.be/xg07TjHOlUM?...

Reposted by Sam Grinsell

Sam Grinsell @samgrinsell.bsky.social · 18d

Urban history as urgent work, an argument for disciplinary promiscuity | Urban History | Cambridge Core

Urban history as urgent work, an argument for disciplinary promiscuity

doi.org

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Sam Grinsell @samgrinsell.bsky.social · 11h

Sounds amazing, hope you get to do this work by hook or by crook

Reposted by Sam Grinsell

Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 23h

What policy themed visitor trail would you do upon retirement? I would pilgrimage to visit the 100 Rishi Sunak outdoor chess sets around the country. I genuinely think it would be one of those fun random things that would take me to places I’d never otherwise go to

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Jay Rosen @jayrosen.bsky.social · 1d

A thing I have learned from being online since 1995:

If you're a writer, editor, journalist, academic, you have to be ready to go contrarian when you feel it. And if you're feeling it all the time, such that it's become your idenitity, that's a signal. You broke your mind.

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CaptDedEyes @captdedeyes.bsky.social · May 29

This Tumblr post gave me a huge confidence boost:

Tumblr post that reads: kill the imposter syndrome in your head because not only is there someone out there doing it worse than you, they're also using chat gpt to do it

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Sarah Murphy @13sarahmurphy.bsky.social · 1d

“I’m old enough to remember when mainstream British politicians, who should know better, stirred up racial hatred as a path to power. You’re old enough to remember too because it was last Tuesday. And it was Robert Jenrick”

Cathartic anger at flag-flying racism.

www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...

Stewart Lee: The thugs have taken my flag. So I’ve taken theirs

What do you do with a lot of cheap banners hanging from motorway bridges once you’ve torn them down?

www.thenerve.news

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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 1d

My cartoon for this week’s @newscientist.com

A comic strip in six panels. The panels inerlock like a jigsaw with knobs and sockets. Two stick figures walk right to left through all the panels.

Panel 1: Person 1 says "I hear you're working on a new theory."
Panel 2 & 3: Person 2 says: "Yes, I'm calling it the jigsaw model. I think it could change our whole View of reality."
Panel 4: Person 1 says "When Will you publish?:
Panel 5: Person 2 says "But a couple of things are still bothering me." (this piece/panel is a bit squint)
Panel 6: This piece is rotated ninety degees and fits to the others very badly. Person 2 is saying "Soon. I feel like I'm really close"
A second look at the whole comic shows that the last two panels read in the wrong order because the jigsaw has been put together incorrectly.

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Dave Andress @davidandress.bsky.social · 1d

We can survive the loss of the pathological, obsessive commitment to material gain regardless of cost.

Indeed, it's unlikely we will survive if we don't get rid of it.

Fossil-fuelled modernity has been a Ponzi scheme for 250 years. Now the police are banging on the door.

Annie Leymarie @annieleymarie.bsky.social · 1d

"The ideal of modern society is freedom from loss. This denial is Western modernity’s foundational lie. Yet such concealment has become impossible…

Resilience, redefinition and redistribution cannot abolish loss altogether...
To face truth with open eyes… would mark a step toward maturity."
👇

David Palomera 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @davidpalomera.bsky.social · 7d

Great piece by Andreas Reckwitz capturing the kind of politics taking shape as, for the first time, the West sees the future as loss and regression.

It’s an excellent summary of possible avenues for action:

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Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 2d

every single tech idea is like “soon our robots will be capable of playing catch with your kid, freeing you up to spend more time working on your employers’ spreadsheets”

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Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 2d

Letter from the advertising department at The Lady magazine, 1977

Our Ref: Sit/QC
22nd March 1977
Mrs A. Miconi,
Flat 17, Lyncourt, The Orchard,
Blackheath,
London SE3
Dear Madam,
We thank you for your letter and payment of £3.80, received on 21st March.
Before proceeding, we must whether you would agree to a slight wording amenament of the wording in order that the advertising conforms to our normal style. The words "Socialist feninist" we would prefer to read "Friendly, motherly," thereby allowing the wording to conform.
We now look forward to your further instructions, whilst advising you that our next issue is 7th April for which we close for press upon receipt of the first post Tuesday 29th March.

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Sam Grinsell @samgrinsell.bsky.social · 2d

One thing that hasn't been raised yet is that the Melton Mowbray pork pie, widely sold now as the mainstream pork pie, has a firmer crust than many I've had from other places. For me heating brings more to a flakier crusted pie, and those I've had hot were usually more in that style

Sam Grinsell @samgrinsell.bsky.social · 2d

Real jump back to John Howard that isn't it!

Sam Grinsell @samgrinsell.bsky.social · 2d

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4... wide-ranging exploration of whether the various artificial intelligences around us are on any sort of road towards artificial desires, and what that might mean

James Meek · Computers that want things

For all the fluency and synthetic friendliness of public-facing AI chatbots like ChatGPT, it seems important to remember...

www.lrb.co.uk

Sam Grinsell @samgrinsell.bsky.social · 2d

Five prime ministers of course 😁

Sam Grinsell @samgrinsell.bsky.social · 2d

The US is yet to have a president born later than 1961. The UK has had five, including one born in the 70s and one in the 80s

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Ordinary Notes @hystericalblkns.bsky.social · 3d

Love after Love. Derek Walcott.

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