The exhibition “Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature” will run at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through May 11. After a long day of hiking, you’ve finally reached the top of the mountain. Tired, thirsty, but exhilarated by your accomplishment, you set your walking stick at your side and look around. But instead of […]

The first city was founded by the first murderer in the biblical story, which tells us something deep about urban dwellings. Jam a crowd of people inside city walls, and what did anyone expect would be the result? Disease, depravity, crime, and the madness of the mob. In the Bible‘s first books, Sodom and Gomorrah […]

Often in political history, towering figures command such attention that even the most consequential of their contemporaries are reduced to footnotes. George S. Boutwell dedicated his life to the defense of democracy, the abolition of slavery, civil rights, and the fight against imperial expansion, yet his name is hardly remembered outside academic circles. He helped […]

President Donald Trump‘s strategy for resolving the war in Ukraine has so far centered on heavy U.S. pressure applied to Ukraine and sympathetic rhetoric toward Russia. It is important that this change now, and with his recent decision to cut off all Russian oil sales to Europe, there are positive signs that the president understands […]