John France— Not long after the Second World War during which I was born, in about 1947 or 48, I startled my assembled family by saying that I wished the war was still on. The cries of shock which this evoked overwhelmed me, and I persisted no further with this
One day, oddly fainted on the ground, I fell asleep on the deep plush textures of this forest . . . I dreamed divine things! . . . A smile of yours woke me, it seems to me . . . and I do not feel my wings!. . .
Seventy years after the end of WWII, we tend to associate Hitler and the German Reich with destruction. Yet, as Hitler rose to power in the 1920s and 1930s, construction was a key part of his political agenda, a fact that Thomas Friedrich makes clear in Hitler’s Berlin: Abused City,
Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition (7th – 9th Century), the revelatory exhibition now on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (accompanied by a rich catalogue of the same title), was recently lauded in the New York Times, praised specifically for “offering a soothing picture of artistic continuity.” The
Famously cited as one of Obama’s favorite philosophers, midcentury religious and political thinker Reinhold Niebuhr offered “a political realism that refuses to abandon high moral principles to short-term practical compromises.” In Why Niebuhr Matters, from Yale University Press’s Why X Matters Series, author Charles Lemert explores the continued relevance of
Native fashion is hip: Native American costumes are sold by the thousands every Halloween, partygoers and celebrities are photographed donning pasted feather headdresses, and some sports teams still brand themselves using Native American themes. Although some argue that these actions express admiration rather than disrespect, cultural appropriations such as these
We’re all used to reading about South Asia in the headlines, but it takes an expert to grasp the complex political, social, and military history of a region that has spent the last thirty-plus years as one of the focal points of U.S. foreign policy. Dilip Hiro, author of more
In her second piece for “Eminent Biography” Emily Bernard, author of Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance: A Portrait in Black and White, explores the relationships of Carl Van Vechten and the many women who circled through his interracial and inter-artistic world of the Harlem Renaissance. After all, it is
The United States Supreme Court is, in the words of today’s New York Times headline, up against a “momentous test.” As most Americans are aware, the justices are hearing arguments about the constitutionality of requiring citizens to obtain health care: the “mandate” that is one of the central components of
For more than a decade now, “Islam” has been a contentious word, associated alternately with terrorism, political regimes, and a widely misunderstood religious faith. Since September 11, 2001, American political commentators have been split between those who call the acts of terrorism typified by the destruction of the World Trade