History Archives - Enlightenment Blog

The uncertain origins of the modern marathon

Posted on September 1, 2020 April 8, 2021 by Emma Jansen

Last November, I ran my first marathon, the “Athens Authentic”. I did it mainly because I wanted to follow in the footsteps of the world’s first marathon runner – the ancient Athenian messenger Pheidippides.

The story, as I knew it, went as follows. After their victory over a Persian invasion force at the border village of Marathon, the Athenians sent a messenger called Pheidippides to deliver the news to the city authorities. After running the 42 kilometres back to Athens, Pheidippides gasped “we’ve won!” (nenikēkamen) and promptly died of exhaustion.

It’s a great story, but was it true? The more I looked into it in the weeks leading up to the race, the less certain I was. Was I about to run 42km for a lie?

Leonardo da Vinci designed an ideal city that was centuries ahead of its time

Posted on August 11, 2020 October 8, 2020 by Emma Jansen

The word “genius” is universally associated with the name of Leonardo da Vinci – a true Renaissance man, he embodied scientific spirit, artistic talent and humanist sensibilities. Exactly 500 years have passed since Leonardo died in his home at Château du Clos Lucé, outside Tours, France. Yet far from fading to insignificance, his thinking has carried down the centuries – and still surprises today.

The Renaissance marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity, after the spread of the plague caused a global crisis resulting in some 200m deaths across Europe and Asia. Today, the world is on the cusp of a climate crisis, which is predicted to cause widespread displacement, extinctions and death, if left unaddressed. Then, as now, radical solutions were called for to revolutionise the way people live and safeguard humanity against catastrophe.

When cities were Nature’s haven: a tale from Bangalore

Posted on August 8, 2020 October 8, 2020 by Emma Jansen

We tend to think that nature and cities are polar opposites. Yet this is not true. As my research on Bangalore or Bengaluru – India’s IT hub – shows, for centuries, the population of this region grew because of nature, not despite it.

In my book Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present and Future, I take a deep dive into the ecological history of an Indian city, going way back in the past to the 6th century CE.

How a Memory Quirk of the Human Brain Can Galvanize AI

Posted on August 4, 2020 October 5, 2020 by Emma Jansen

Even as toddlers we’re good at inferences. Take a two-year-old that first learns to recognize a dog and a cat at home, then a horse and a sheep in a petting zoo. The kid will then also be able to tell apart a dog and a sheep, even if he can’t yet articulate their differences.

This ability comes so naturally to us it belies the complexity of the brain’s data-crunching processes under the hood. To make the logical leap, the child first needs to remember distinctions between his family pets. When confronted with new categories—farm animals—his neural circuits call upon those past remembrances, and seamlessly incorporate those memories with new learnings to update his mental model of the world.

Guided Tours as Cross-cultural Inspiration to Sustainable Living

Posted on July 21, 2020 October 8, 2020 by Emma Jansen

Guided tours are an integral part of visiting a new destination—especially so if the destination is a city. Many tourists use tours to see the main sights and get background information on the destination’s history and culture. The guided tour can, however, also be used to raise awareness on key issues such as sustainability.

Active Copenhagen is a network of experience creators who offer tours and experiences showing sustainable living in practice. The mode of transportation is green: on bikes, running, walking, in kayak or on solar-driven boats. Our common storyline often does not include the word “sustainability” in the title or description. Rather, we focus on “localhood”: showing the tourist what it is like to be a local in Copenhagen—integrating sustainability on a practical level.

Happiness Needs to Be Financed Too – A New Generation of Conservation Finance in Bhutan

Posted on July 19, 2020 April 7, 2021 by Emma Jansen

Nestled among the peaks of the Himalayas between China and India — Bhutan is a land of remote mountain valleys, rich in natural wonders — and with a population less than one million, one of the most sparsely populated countries in Asia.

Contrary to the declines across the rest of the world, flora and fauna populations are showing a reverse trend. For a large number of species under threat in the region, the country has proven to be an important last refuge. Its mountain peaks host some of the few remaining populations of snow leopard and red pandas reside near bamboo stacks in the high mountain forests.