Stephen Mitchell— It’s something of a miracle that any of our ancient literary masterpieces survived the downfall or shift of civilizations, since they all might easily have been lost. Of Heraclitus’s profound insights, we have only tantalizing fragments. Of Sappho’s nine books, there remain just four poems and scattered verses
David Scott Kastan— Up until the eighteenth century, Asian people appeared white to European eyes. Sometime early in 1515, a Portuguese merchant named Tomé Pires sent a detailed account of his three years of Asian travel to King Manuel I and described the people he met there as “white, just
Mark Galeotti— He was quite the most charming contract killer with whom one could imagine having a drink. But nonetheless, for all his cheerful Chechen twinkle, and the ritualised North Caucasus courtesy which meant we had to argue fiercely over the right to pay the bill, even though we both
Jenny Hale Pulsipher— By the end of the seventeenth century, the Native people of what we now call New England were overwhelmed by a rapidly growing, land-hungry English colonial population and the repeated onslaught of epidemic disease. A bold attempt at resistance—King Philip’s War (1674-1678)—led to a devastating defeat. Thousands
Ruma Chopra— Maroons were tiny communities of escaped slaves who held an in-between status in many New World slave societies, somewhere between freedom and captivity. They avoided the brutality of slavery but confronted the abuses that came from being black in a white society. During the 1790s, a community of
Hannah Pollin-Galay— “The End of the Jewish People is Here.” This is not a headline from the 1940’s but from June 2018. It appeared as one of many articles reporting on a survey conducted by the American Jewish Committee, which polled American and Israeli Jews on a range of contemporary
John D. Hosler— The oracle at Delphi advised, “Know Thyself,” and the rock band Rage Against the Machine screamed, “Know Your Enemy.” Which is more important for winning a war? Or rather, is it both? Military historians are keenly interested in the extent to which armies knew and understood the abilities
Stephen D. King— Our ideas and institutions shift with alarming regularity. Spanish conquistadors of the early sixteenth century—bounty-hunters hell bent on extracting silver from the New World, regardless of the human cost—would have been surprised to discover that Spain, at one point Europe’s superpower, is now one of the poorer
Joshua Keating— “If you don’t have Borders, you don’t have a Country!” President Trump tweeted this statement most recently on June 19 at the height of the backlash against his administration’s practice of separating the children of undocumented immigrants from their parents. But the idea that unauthorized crossings of the
Guy Laron— With the moving of the American embassy to the Jerusalem last month, the American-Israeli alliance has never looked stronger. However, even close allies can experience crises. Such was the case when Israel’s naval and air forces bombed and torpedoed the USS Liberty on 8 June 1967, killing thirty-four