Ways of Seeing: Crisis underscores good fortune

There is a lot going on in the world right now, but I confess that I have been frequently and somewhat blissfully unaware of most of it. At the moment, I am suffering from some health issues that prevent me from spending too much time on the computer and even from reading — it hurts my head if I do it for too long. That means I can’t really read the news. Although I would not wish this pain on anyone, I have to say that hearing and reading about the constant national and global catastrophes that have been h … (read more)

“We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future.” Frederick Douglass said that in a speech he delivered on July 5, 1852, in Rochester, N.Y. As a historian, I think a lot about the past. I am trained to study it, … (read more)