At The New Republic, I have a piece about one of my favorite places in the world: the Old City of Damascus.
Filed under: New Republic, history, Middle East
14 April 2012 • 6:35 pm 0
Trouble in Timbuktu
At the Boston Globe Ideas section, I wrote about the history of Timbuktu.
Filed under: Boston Globe, history, religion
29 January 2012 • 1:13 pm 0
Cullen Murphy’s new book on the Inquisition
11 September 2011 • 6:33 pm 0
The Twin Towers
Originally appeared in The Daily.
The World Trade Center site is now hallowed ground, and to denigrate the architecture of its enormous rectangular towers is vaguely uncouth, as if to denigrate not just the towers but the great city that produced them. But critics were not always so respectful. When the towers went up in the early 1970s, everyone found something to hate. Those who liked shiny glass skyscrapers moaned at these opaque figures now marring the skyline. More classically inclined critics asked whether this was where modern architecture had brought us — to big rectangles, witless and inert, as ugly as they were inhuman. The unkindest cuts came from those who said they were not up to the Big Apple’s standard — “so utterly banal,” wrote the critic Paul Goldberger, “as to be unworthy of the headquarters of a bank in Omaha.” Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Daily, architecture, history, New York, United States
1 September 2011 • 6:21 pm 0
Jersey Gore
Originally appeared in The Daily.
For today’s summer vacationers, the Jersey Shore presents few dangers worse than bad calzone, unwanted encounters with reality TV stars, and venereal disease. But the beach bums of yesteryear faced a danger much more terrifying, and not curable with a dose of Imodium or penicillin. It measured about 10 feet long, stalked swimmers along a 125-mile stretch of coastline, and feasted on human flesh throughout the summer of 1916. No one can be sure, but most scientists now think the culprit was one or several great white or bull sharks. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Daily, animals, history, United States
13 August 2011 • 6:45 pm 0
A Vanished Heir
The last days of a missing Rockefeller
Originally appeared in The Daily.
Michael Rockefeller, heir to a fortune in the hundreds of millions and the son of the governor of New York, was last seen 50 years ago tying a pair of empty red gas cans to his back and swimming for the shore. “I think I can make it,” he said. Then he swam away from his capsized catamaran into the Arafura Sea, toward the coast of New Guinea, where cannibalism may still have been practiced.
12 August 2011 • 6:16 pm 0
Wojtek, Soldier Bear
Originally appeared in The Daily.
In November 1947, after five years of service, the Polish army discharged a soldier by the name of Wojtek at the rank of corporal. Wojtek’s record had its moments of distinction, including heroism under fire in the brutal battle against the Nazis at Monte Cassino, Italy. But overall, it was blemished with insubordination, including drunkenness, theft of women’s clothing, and attempted murder. For another soldier, these crimes would have meant a court-martial, but the army let them slide, because Corporal Wojtek was a 500-pound brown bear.
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27 June 2011 • 6:39 pm 0
Project Runaway
Alamo deserter lives on to become Texas’ most infamous coward
Originally appeared in The Daily.
In August 1990, when President George H. W. Bush wanted to send a message to Saddam Hussein, he used the toughest language he knew: that of his adoptive home state of Texas. Bush warned Saddam that “a line has been drawn in the sand,” and that the U.S.-led coalition would remove him from Kuwait by force if necessary. Saddam was not a man of rhetorical subtlety in any language, but he could be forgiven for wondering what “line in the sand” his adversary was talking about. If the dictator did not know his Texas history, the imagery would have perplexed him — and if he did know his Texas history, it might have perplexed him even more. Was he supposed to cross it, or not?
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Filed under: Daily, history, Texas, United States
