Herman Melville — Who are the Real Savages?
For those of you who are decades away from reading Herman Melville or find that what you remember of him …
Category Archives: War
War. Courage. Resistance.
“If in any country whatever a recruiting campaign were to be launched today for some utterly preposterous war, a war …
American Empire: Going Across the Waters
Those of us who have spent anytime at all in Hawaii, usually on vacation, enjoying the fine weather, the …
Yes, There Were Anti-War Officers, Too
I was co-author of a recent opinion piece in the NY Times on-going Vietnam ’67 series. It begins like this: …
The Battle Cry of Freedom — The Beginnings of the Civil War
In these years when many have worried aloud about a neo-civil war brewing between American shores it is somewhat …
War Porn – Roy Scranton’s Unremitting Gaze
War Porn (2016) by Roy Scranton is not a book to be easily read. To be read, yes, but …
Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans
Ken Burns’ PBS series, The Vietnam War has been much in the news, and on many minds, this fall, 52 years …
Croatia — The Sorrows of Separation
The news from Spain and Catalonia this week has made my blood run cold. Plebiscites, exuberance, declarations of independence. The …
Language Does Not Lie — Victor Klemperer
Victor Klemperer was a philologist, a German and a Jew in Dresden during the Nazi regime and the world war. As …
On Tyranny – Timothy Snyder
Do Not Obey in Advance This is the sentence which starts Timothy Snyder’s sadly necessary book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons …
The Long March – William Styron
Long before William Styron became famous for The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) and Sophie’s Choice (1979) he wrote a slim …
Tadeusz Borowski — The Camps are Us
Massacre and genocide have been on the scroll of human history since cracked skulls left their sure signs, then in …