Search Results

Displaying 505 - 528 of 1396

Colonizing Mars: Practicing Other Worlds on Earth

… Congress in Adelaide, Australia. Musk spoke about his company's plans for interplanetary travel and his belief in … image of the Mars Pathfinder mission taken from its landing site in 1997 ( bottom ).  U.S. federal plans for planetary … travel without much in the way of action, one of the most prominent attempts to simulate a Martian homestead was …
Khrushchev during his visit to the Agricultural Research Service Center in Maryland.

Khrushchev’s Great American Road Trip

Review of Nikita Khrushchev's Journey into America, by Lawrence J. Nelson and Matthew G. Schoenbachler (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2019)
… September 1959 Nikita Khrushchev, General Secretary of the Communist Party and Premier of the Soviet Union , arrived in … in the Iowa heartland where he toured agricultural sites and in Pittsburgh to see industrial sites, and his … of the Soviet premier comes out, and in a way that is the most powerful part of the book. Americans were curious about …
Happy 2nd Lieutenant William Robertson and Lt. Alexander Sylvashko, Soviet Army, shown in front of sign [East Meets West] symbolizing the historic meeting of the Soviet and American Armies, near Torgau, Germany, 1945.

Top Ten Origins: The Best Moments in U.S.-Russian Relations

… war with one another, American pundits and politicians almost always cast Moscow as the perpetual “enemy” of American … many friendly moments as well. These constructive episodes complicate a history that is often painted as invariably … Christie Brinkley and his daughter Alexa, the piano man visited Soviet Georgia and the grave of Soviet bard Vladimir …
Atomic bomb damage on Hiroshima gas building.

Time to Confront the Ethics of Hiroshima

… the natural candidates to take the lead in confronting our most painful episode from the war, because they were once … Tribune, at the time a leading conservative voice, claimed that President Truman and his advisers were guilty of … indefensibility of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima is becoming a part of the national conservative creed." But times …

The Ukrainian Crisis: In Russia's Long Shadow

… ministry with an offer to divide Ukraine. The westernmost provinces would be returned to Poland, which had ruled … of Ukraine: Russia cannot be an empire without Ukraine and coming to terms with Ukraine’s separate nationhood is a … nations. With Ukrainian independence, Russia lost many sites enshrined in its historical memory, including the …
President George W. Bush signs a law in front of senators.

The Dark Side of “Faith-Based Initiatives”

… President Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives — created to give religious groups tax … to the 19th century. He argues that when private charities, mostly religious ones, gave help instead of the government, … Protestant ministers, appealed to people who felt overwhelmed by change and were often insecure about their own …
Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany.

Peace through Olympic Sport?

… corruption scandals, doping controversies and rampant commercialism have done so little to dent the popularity of … necessary for the Olympics, but they can also be transformed — tamed and pacified, at least in part — when expressed … at the Olympics. The price is recognition that our most fundamental characteristic is not our national identity …

Becoming 'European:' The Diverging Paths of the Czech and Slovak Republics

… reminded observers that the Czech Republic had now assumed the six-month rotating EU presidency. This fantastic … among Czech officials about their place in a larger Europe. Most conspicuously, Czech President (and Euro-skeptic) … west became (if ambivalently for some) the second former communist-bloc state to assume the rotating presidency of …
Marina Silva (PSB)

10/21/2014: Top Ten Origins: Brazil's Presidential Elections

… Neves) 21.32%. As one of the largest and economically most important countries in the world, the outcome of these elections is significant not just for Brazilians but for all of us. Most of the world recognizes Brazil for its fútbol, …
Escobar: Paradise Lost, directed by Andrea Di Stefano

2/6/2015: At the Movies: Escobar

… soldiers. Entrance to Hacienda Napoles, the main Escobar compound, with a gate adorned with Escobar's first smuggling … 1980s, Escobar was a millionaire, the head of the powerful Medellín Cartel, and  the largest supplier of cocaine to the … animal friends behind in the jungle. It is perhaps the most chilling scene Del Toro delivers in the movie. By …
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. exiting a plane in 1964.

King in Time; King in time

… that story really was. Surely, 1963 was the single most important year in post-World War II America. It was the most significant in African Americans’ 20th-century struggle … a tranquilizing Thalidomide,’ giving ‘birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration.’ Only by ‘following the cause of …

Energy Policy and the Long Transition in America

… You can't read the newspapers or surf the web without coming face to face with the pivotal human problem of energy … the regulation of electricity and natural gas, but remained mostly a separate policy story (even though oil and gas were … interest groups are taking on "green" personas on their web sites. For the foreseeable future, however, the economics of …

What We Talk About When We Talk About Confederate Monuments

… the violence had already begun. But the worst was yet to come. Saturday’s rally was scheduled to start at noon, but … the Southern point of view. That memory industry began almost immediately after the Confederacy’s defeat. This … Law center showing when schools, monuments, and other sites honoring the Confederacy or Confederates were built. …
An MP looking north from South Korea in the Demilitarized Zone, 2008.

The War That Never Ended: The Legacy of the Korean War

… forces, however, the South Korean military repelled the Communist attack and eventually pushed them north of the … resulting in militarization to a greater extent than most other liberal democracies.  For example, under the … and other civilians on state-funded trips to this site. Complete with wax figurines of long-nosed, beast-like …
Shakespeare For All Time, by Stanley Wells Book cover.

Shakespeare For All Time

Review of Shakespeare For All Time, by Stanley Wells (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)
… For almost four hundred years William Shakespeare has captured the … testifies to this fascination. William Shakespeare has become more than a brilliant playwright from … two centuries. Shakespeare's plays continued to be performed and his pre-eminence in England was guaranteed by the …

(Fore)Closing on the American Dream

… lucky. Their ability to afford their monthly payments was compromised first by the falling market, then by mortgages … How Did We Get Here? Although political leaders and the media often portray homeownership as central to the … many mortgages had terms between three and five years, and most required renegotiation every three, six, or twelve …
A Sea Fight with Barbary Corsairs by Laureys a Castro, c. 1681

Hostage Taking in Algeria Is a 200-Year-Old Story

… The State Department is probably very pleased with the outcome of last week’s hostage crisis in Algeria, although … Algerian military. And you may very well have missed it; in most American news media the story was eclipsed by accounts of a dead imaginary …
Tanks rolling off a German assembly line in 1943

The Nature of World War II

… Seventy-five years ago, in late summer 1943, famed war correspondent Ernie Pyle sat above a newly … in continents far removed from the conflict because of the compelling demand that war creates for forest and … Boeing Plant 2, and hundreds of other military-industrial sites spewed the noxious pollutants that would eventually …
Close-up of Indian couple's hands during wedding ceremony

Reproductive Politics and the Making of Modern India

… eugenicists, feminists, and family planners all aimed to reform reproduction to transform both individual … Nicholas Breyfogle: Hello, and welcome to Reproductive Politics and the Making of Modern … Public Library for co-sponsoring the event today. And most of all, many thanks to all of you who are making the …
Pullman Strike illustration

Top Ten Origins: American Workers and Strikes

… Socialist Congress meeting in Paris in July 1899. The comrades set the date in solidarity with organized workers … the United States. In honor of May 1, here are ten of the most important moments in American labor history. 1. The … using technological innovations to move plants to non-union sites while introducing automated processes that gradually …
2nd Battalion, 7th Marines packing up gear to withdraw from Al-Taqaddum Air Base, 24 March 2020.

Vietnam and Iraq: The Benefits of Getting Out

… Vietnam analogy is not so much the difficulty of drawing comparisons between two different situations. The problem is that the most important similarities between Iraq and Vietnam are almost precisely the opposite of what President Bush often argues. The correct …
A U.S. Coast Guard boat approaches a sailboat with over 90 Haitian refugees in 1988. The refugees were later returned to Haiti.

Who is responsible for the Elian Gonzalez case?

… to leave Haiti's repression and poverty, Elian would almost certainly be on his way to U.S. citizenship today.   … in the United States. This special treatment for Cubans seemed fair to most Americans. After all, Fidel Castro was a Communist dictator. The United States had to open its doors …