Timothy Young— The history of children’s books is still being written. While there are important writers working in the field, much needs to be done to bring the rigor of mature literary, sociological, and historical investigation to this relatively young field of study. One of the challenges to research is
Tom Hayden— It is time for a new effort to reverse the propaganda about Vietnam and our movement to end the war. It is time for truth telling, for healing, and for legacy. Who will tell our story when we are gone? So much has already escaped memory, and now
Lindy Grant— Last night I went to see the new film Jackie, in which Natalie Portman gives a searing portrait of Jacqueline Kennedy in the immediate aftermath of her husband’s death. It made me think of the similarities and differences between Jackie Kennedy and Blanche of Castile, the queen of France who lived
Richard D. Brown— In 1787 when Benjamin Franklin left the Constitutional Convention a lady famously asked “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic,” Franklin replied tartly, “if you can keep it.” Now, 230 years later, Franklin’s observation on our Founders’ great experiment haunts us.
Ray Moseley— The legendary adventures of Clare Hollingworth’s life are such stuff as Hollywood movies are made on. And, to continue paraphrasing Prospero, her long life is rounded with a sleep that has attracted front-page headlines in Britain as well as extensive coverage in the U. S. and elsewhere. Hollingworth,
Benjamin Ginsberg— At a Washington dinner party, I happened to mention to the woman seated to my right, an executive of Health and Human Services (HHS), the agency responsible for Americans’ health care, that a colleague and I had undertaken a survey of Washington officials to find out what the
Rebecca Gould— High in the mountains running along the border between Azerbaijan and Georgia, in the garrison town of Zaqatala, former outpost of the famed Imam Shamil who in the mid-nineteenth century led the longest resistance to Russian rule, I meet an elderly woman crossing the street. “Come inside and
Zara Anishanslin— Donald Trump’s “Make American Great Again” hat. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s ubiquitous pantsuits. In 2016, both fashion items became immediately recognizable markers of political affiliation. First the candidates themselves, and then people voting for them—men and women alike—announced their politics by wearing one or the other. Such politicized fashion
James Heinzen— I first became fascinated with the social and cultural dimensions of everyday bribery in the Soviet Union when I was robbed in Moscow in 1992, just after the collapse of the USSR. My wallet was swiped by a group of kids while I was walking in central Moscow. When
January 31st, 2017 marks the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the revolutionary building designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. The building launched the careers of these two Pritzker Prize-winning architects and is today one of the world’s most popular cultural institutions and the