My entire relationship with Nelson Mandela was instinctive. I never worked out or tried to analyse the dynamics of being the prison warder in charge of his daily life for 12 years, and his close friend for … Read the article
Why are we drawn to certain cities? Perhaps because of a story read in childhood. Or a chance teenage meeting. Or maybe simply because the place touches us, embodying in its tribes, towers and history an aspect … Read the article
My son’s history teacher thinks I’m spreading lies.
To be fair, he was wonderfully polite about it. “I read your book,” he told me, standing by the punch bowl at Back to School night. “That story about … Read the article
There can’t be many people who have never heard the name Nelson Mandela. His has become a household name, a name respected by everyone everywhere, from grandmothers to schoolchildren. Not so many people would recognize his other … Read the article
On August 28, 1963, hundreds of thousands of Americans descended on Washington, D.C. to participate in what would become a watershed moment of the Civil Rights Movement. Legendary photographer Stanley Tretick was there with his camera to … Read the article
A series of meetings were held between an Associated Press correspondent, Mr. George L. Seese, and a Villista agent. The agent wanted to convey to the Americans via their press that Villa had nothing to do … Read the article
Napoleon’s rise owed everything to the French Revolution, to its ideals of liberty and equality, the meritocracy that lay at its roots, and the huge institutional changes that it wrought. Without the events of 1789, France would … Read the article
The original Alexandre Dumas was born in 1762, the son of “Antoine Alexandre de l’Isle,” in the French sugar colony of Saint-Domingue. Antoine was a nobleman in hiding from his family and from the law, and he … Read the article
The winter weather in Dresden lifted abruptly on Shrove Tuesday, February 13, 1945, ushering in a hint of spring. On this last day before the beginning of Lent, small children begged to be allowed to wear … Read the article
William Henry Harrison arrived in Washington to huge crowds and a snowstorm on February 9, his sixty-eighth birthday. His trip had begun in Cincinnati, where he spent a night in a hotel that was surrounded by noisy … Read the article