“What’s Wrong with the World?”

Around the turn of the last century, a prominent London newspaper called The World put the following question to its readers, offering a prize for the best possible answer: “What’s wrong with the world?” Not the newspaper, of…

Sensibility and Sense

 “This is the most sensible man that I ever saw in my life.”—Mrs. Porter, on Dr. Johnson, quoted in W. Jackson Bate, Samuel Johnson I live with the most sensible person I’ve ever seen in…

An Honest Man: Smedley Butler

Marine General Smedley Butler, in a 1933 speech: “I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in…

How It Was

Michele Turner has collected personal testimonies by the East Timorese about their recent history of suffering and resistance.  Telling East Timor reminds me of Mev’s book of interviews with Brazilians, in that these, too, are…

“I Remember” by Loran Aladdin

Loran wrote the following for my Humanities 101 class at Maryville University this past spring semester. _______________________ I remember a lifetime of feeling as though I should refrain from being proud of my identity. I…

“Everything Must Be Told and Written Down”

Laura Jockusch,  Collect and Record: Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early Postwar Europe  (Oxford University Press, 2012). Laura Rockusch has performed an inspiring service in producing her book, Collect and Record. Contrary to many people’s assumptions…

What Can You Tell the School Kids?

Svetlana Alexievich, Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War, introduction by Larry Heinemann   Afgantsi (singular Afganets): Soviet veterans of the war Even as Ken Burns’ new documentary on the Vietnam War airs, U.S….