Fifteen years ago today, I sat on the Great Wall of China and pondered the journey I was setting out upon — 61 weeks by land across Asia, from China to Turkey. To commemorate the anniversary, I post the following excerpt from my unpublished manuscript about the journey: Sitting alone on the Great Wall […]
October 20, 1918: The Last Day Of Forrest Hayden’s Life
It is hard to relate to things that happened a century ago, even though they very much shape our societies today. The present, not that which precedes our birth, presses against us and feels alive. For Forrest Hayden of Kentucky, whose grave is seen in the above photo, the year 1918 surely started out feeling […]
Visiting the John McCain monument in Hanoi, Vietnam
The monument is easy to miss, and not only because it’s small. Tourist trails laid out by guidebooks are more likely to lead you to other places in Hanoi: around Hoan Kiem Lake, through the picturesque Old Quarter, or to the Temple of Literature. They’re less likely to lead you to John McCain. And understandably. […]
The Role Children Play In Connecting People
A historian could talk for weeks about the Turkish city of Mardin, located in the country’s southeastern corner not far from the Tigris River. But in this post, I only want to say a word about one of its more recent inhabitants. Her name is Reyyan, and when we met in 2017, she was three […]
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 21
- Next Page »