Karen J. Greenburg: The Real Failure of January 6th
How America’s Insurrectionists Crossed the Rubicon of History
Raphael Falco: How Bob Dylan used the ancient practice of ‘imitatio’ to craft some of the most original songs of his time
Bob Dylan is both a modern voice entirely unique and, at the same time, the product of ancient, time-honored ways of practicing and thinking about creativity.
Sabine Oishi: When the US bombed Switzerland
Although Switzerland was not actively involved in WWII, it suffered a total of seventy bombings by Allied airplanes between 1940 and 1945.
Rachel Hadas: Ancient Greece had extreme polarization and civil strife too – how Thucydides can help us understand Jan. 6 and its aftermath
The insights and objectivity of a historian who lived nearly 2,500 years ago can bolster our understanding of the country’s current plight.
Nan Levinson: Is There a World Beyond War?
Women have been at the forefront of peace actions since Lysistrata organized the women of ancient Greece to deny men sex until they ended the Peloponnesian War.
Thom Hartmann: This Is the Dying Phase of Reaganism–and It’s Hideous
The question today is whether we as a nation and a people will recover from Reaganism, or if it will, as Reagan promised, destroy the American experiment of pluralistic liberal democracy.
Baron Wormser: Remembering the Alchemists & Other Essays
One sentence speaks for all his direct, well-wrought sentences: “We are inside the largest militarist society the world has ever known, and we are at war always.”
Rebecca Gordon: American Exceptionalism on Full Display
Why This Country Might Want to Lower Its Expectations
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: When Monrovia Rises
All day, boys younger
than history can remember, shout at one another
on a street corner near me about a country they
have never seen.
Mehdi Alavi: British Genocide in Kenya | Time for a Reckoning
No sum can ever wipe out the suffering of the Kenyan people. But British reparations will serve three important functions.
Abby Zimet: It Was Dark. It Was Loud. It Was Hard For Many.
In America, where the dark and crazy remain strong, we choose to begin the year taking solace and inspiration from President Zelensky…
Barbara Hamby: Elvis and Tolstoy Save the World
I am standing in line waiting for the bus to take me
across the street to Graceland when Tolstoy shows up
with his white beard and peasant’s garb
The Ancient Icelandic Saga Voluspo: “The Wise-Woman’s Prophecy”
Fast move the sons | of Mim, and fate
Is heard in the note | of the Gjallarhorn;
Loud blows Heimdall, | the horn is aloft,
In fear quake all | who on Hel-roads are
Michael T. Young: The Spoils of War
A little girl grips the one toy she was
allowed to carry away through crowds
stumbling together from their homes.
Vox Populi 