The Americans
I met an American couple in Florence last week. It did not go well. But let me backtrack. It is [...]
Doomed from within
Not many people now remember how roundly loathed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center once were. Only when [...]
Obioma’s colliding cultures
In Chicozie Obioma’s “An Orchestra of Minorities” (Little Brown, 2019), an invasive white culture is portrayed as eating away at [...]
The hard part
In the crude tap-dance that animates the vindictive side of politics, having an enemy under investigation as a potential crook [...]
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
It turns out Fred Rogers, the mainstay of low-key children’s television for nearly a half century, was something of a [...]
World without history?
I recently asked a class of college students if they knew the mythological story of Oedipus. I wanted to hear [...]
The limits of history
Politics, to tinker with an old saying, does anything but end at the water’s edge. Washington is busy arguing over [...]
The unforgotten soldier
Recently I gave my students a lecture in the history of journalism. I told them it’s important to have a [...]
The twilight of private clinics
Italy’s fashion industry and top restaurants belong in the so-called First World, its bureaucracy in what was once labeled the [...]
My 21st-century genetic confession
Columnist Nora Saravalle takes a trendy leap and has her DNA tested. And fastidiousness wins by a nose.