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Highclere Castle, the main setting for Downton Abbey.

At the Movies: Downton Abbey

… survive in a changing world. The movie revolves around a visit by King George V and Queen Mary to Downton Abbey. George V’s reign marked a tumultuous time for Britain that witnessed not only the calamity of the … its effects: “My maid was rather curt with me, but she is a Communist at heart.” Mounted police clear demonstrators from …
Bronze statue of Sir William Blackstone.

Back to the 17th Century: Money and Political Speech

… is, and used this argument to weaken the campaign finance reforms passed after Watergate. One of the justices even … rather, he wrote, “[t]he electors themselves are becoming the oligarchy.” Mill’s fear, like that of today’s … political spending with political speech is but the latest version of a very old argument. The money-speech …
One of Havana's plazas without a church.

A Postcard From Havana, Cuba

… outside deck to get my first look at Cuba, a country that for so long seemed almost fictional. The United States’ … of Florida, yet American citizens have been restricted from visiting the island for generations. Morro Castle, the … the American imagination. America’s fixation on Cuba’s Communist government has led to many regrettable results: …
Infamous photograph of German soldiers rounding up Jews for deportation in the Warsaw Ghetto, 1943.

Weathering the Storm: Wartime Lives of Ordinary People

Review of An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler, by Peter Fritzsche (New York: Basic Books, 2016)
… horizons of empathy,” quickly became the dominant priority for people under German occupation. His conclusion, finally, … phases of the war affected daily life. Gossip about the latest news of the war mattered to people trapped in the … German soldier. Fritzsche is particularly interested in comparing the French and Polish accounts about sharing space …
North College Hill, Ohio, USA, Memorial Day parade, 2004, by Rick Dikeman.

A Vanishing American Remembrance?

… nation. Strained budgets have been the most cited reason for past cancelations of Memorial Day events. But the truth … in Arlington National Cemetery were not even permitted to visit the grave sites of their relatives after the Civil … the national holiday from its pedestal. Memorial Day commemorates the men and women killed on the battlefield or …
Malawi

A Postcard from Livingstonia, Malawi

… became a target of Scottish missionaries, who paved the way for the launch of official colonization in Malawi in 1890s. … Livingstonia in honor of his mentor. The Gordon Road People visiting Livingstonia travel on the Gordon Road, named after … to drive. During the rainy season, the road's stones become very slippery, making transportation difficult. The …
Tiger

Caged: Humans and Animals at the Zoo

… Zoos are some of the world’s most visited attractions. Yet they often make headlines for controversial reasons such as in 2016 when the … or in 2017 when poachers killed a rhinoceros at a Paris Zoo for its horns. While schoolchildren and adults alike may … little difference between the stuffed gorilla that you can buy at the gift shop and the gorilla in an enclosure that …
Protestors against the U.S. Trump administration voice their commitment to the world's dispossessed.

The Politics of Refugee Aid in America’s “Short Century”

Review of Benevolent Empire: U.S. Power, Humanitarianism, and the World's Dispossessed , by Stephen R. Porter Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.
… Published just before the November 2016 U.S. presidential election, Stephen … U.S. Power, Humanitarianism, and the World’s Dispossessed comes at a time that many observers of U.S. domestic … circumstances, wishing to return home. Eleanor Roosevelt visits Hungarian Freedom Fighters in Salzburg, Austria, …

What We Talk About When We Talk About Confederate Monuments

… According to news accounts, Jason Kessler, a former journalist and current member of the … the violence had already begun. But the worst was yet to come. Saturday’s rally was scheduled to start at noon, but … in Georgia. A view of the carvings on Stone Mountain, the visitor center, and the surrounding park ( left ). A …

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

… from a television studio where Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs Alexandr Vondra triumphantly hailed the … west became (if ambivalently for some) the second former communist-bloc state to assume the rotating presidency of … with U.S. politicians and businessmen during his time as a visiting professor in Chicago, helped win U.S. support for
A memorial to Holocaust victims in front of a Jewish cemetery.

A Postcard from Berlin: Confronting a Troubled Past

… how to remember the past. More than a simple residence for millions of Germans, it also contains a tumultuous … dot the landscape and stand beside opera houses and statues commemorating prominent figures of German cultural heritage. … gradually become taller and more imposing the deeper the visitor wanders into the center. Berliners respect what the …
Sign that reads, "You are either affected or infected with HIV/AIDS."

HIV/AIDS: Past, Present and Future

… of HIV/AIDS  as a phenomenon that began in the 1980s, when news first broke of a mysterious and highly deadly disease. … to the globalization and economic neoliberalism that transformed the global economy in the late twentieth century. On … of HIV/AIDS in both the United States and around the world. For more Origins coverage of HIV/AIDS and other related …
Cover of Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend by Richard Stoneman.

Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend

Review of Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend, by Richard Stoneman (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2008)
… present in the Alexander legends. The Egyptian tradition, for example, credited Nectanebo, the last historical pharaoh … birth narrative takes a markedly different approach. It comes to us via Firdausi's Shahnameh (Book of Kings), … Persia. The Jewish and Arabic traditions relate Alexander's visit to Jerusalem and his founding of cities. In the Jewish …
The Temple of Kukulkan at Chichén Itzá.

A Postcard From Chichén Itzá

… of scientific knowledge, and of political power. For the Mayan Empire, centered in modern Southeast Mexico, … Itzá, one of the central and sacred sites of the empire, visitors can both see and hear representations of two … Site. It stands as a vast historical source that enables visitors to glimpse the spiritual world, the scientific …
 Cover of The Gold Standard at the Turn of the Twentieth Century Rising Powers, Global Money, and the Age of Empire by Steven Bryan.

All that Glitters Is Not Laissez-Faire

Review of The Gold Standard at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Rising Powers, Global Money, and the Age of Empire, by Steven Bryan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010)
… walking amidst downed branches and scattered leaves, the newspaper headlines screamed that Lehman Brothers had … Until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the combination of new technology with the "classically liberal" … money" of the gold standard, created the conditions for a worldwide boom in investment and production.  The …
a Galapagos sea turtle swimming in the ocean

What’s “Natural” on the Galapagos Islands?

The youngest, westernmost islands are still volcanically active and are thought to be no more than 700,000 thousand years old.
… perpetually moving Nazca tectonic plate, the islands were formed through repeated volcanic activity. Layer by layer, … devoid of animal or plant life. This initial isolation, combined with its location at the confluence of three … that strikes me with wonder.” Even before Darwin’s visit, however, human beings had begun to shape the …

The Road to Same-Sex Marriage: Lesbian Mothers, Gay Fathers, and the American Family

… very heart of the case. In amicus curiae briefs submitted for U.S. v. Windsor , children were a central focus in both … of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere—organizations that had come out of gay-father activism of the 1980s—wrote a brief … from their ex-spouses in order to keep their children or visitation rights. There were still dangers involved in …
Print of "Galveston's Awful Calamity".

Galveston 1900: 125 Years After the Storm

… storm which these swells...told us in unerring language was coming.” —Dr. Isaac Cline Today, the National Weather Service (NWS) is trusted to provide timely warnings for hurricanes to the residents of the United States. But … , while railroads brought the Texas cotton crop and summer visitors alike. But the city was built on a barrier island …
Valerie Plame in 2008.

A Dirty–and Deadly–Trick

… exposed the name of a CIA agent to columnist Robert Novak. For more than two months, the president did nothing to … Office shenanigans. Presidents and their underlings have committed numerous immoral, illegal or dodgy acts. They’ve … last fall to learn whether Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium from that African country. Revealing her …

Taiwan's 2008 Elections: A New Direction for the 'Other China'?

… party rule") similar to the sort that had preceded the DPP for decades. The presidential election, held as always on a … is not quite as large as Massachusetts and Rhode Island combined. It is also the second-most densely populated … Taiwan (where Ma grew up and went to college), Ma has never visited the Chinese mainland. After graduating at the top of …
Queen Mary’s College, opened in 1914.

A Postcard from Madras: A City Born of the Colonial Encounter

… (Madras) in India. Madras was born in 1636, when East India Company official Francis Day signed a treaty with the Nayaka … overlooking the Bay of Bengal. Madras was an odd choice for a city because it had no existing port for trade, and … he chose to settle the EIC where he could be near her and visit her frequently. Nearly four centuries later, the EIC …
Cover of Mother of Invention by Robert I. Field

Government Fingers in the Health Care Jar?

Review of Mother of Invention: How the Government Created "Free Market Health Care", by Robert I. Field (Oxford University Press, 2013)
… as an idealized system of unfettered exchanges between buyers and sellers. There’s no room for the government in … up to this point: to pay for everything from hospital visits to prescriptions, one needs health insurance. Of the … that translates to the future of American health care comes in his final chapter. “Health care cannot function,” …