Journalist – Historian – Speaker
I recently discovered a computer directory containing 749 recipes written, organized, annotated, and collected by my late mom.  Somewhere there are expanding files and written recipes, though not all of them made it through all the moves. Still, I have these, and in them I can hear her voice. This dish is named after an Iranian …
So Leicester City won the British Premier League title, which is very exciting for people it excites! I noted in the preview last weekend in the New York Times that there’s an interesting touch of history and nostalgia in their narrative: April 4, 2015 Sitting in last place with nine games to go, it seems certain …
The Middle East is going through a transformation that will play out for a generation, rooted in conflicts that date back millennia. – Barack Obama, State of the Union 2016 I’ve been thinking about conflicts around the globe. While many of them occur in similar places as conflicts in the past, and while superficially conflicting …
For Southern Nationalists, slavery was better than modern taxation and the KKK was just a neighborhood watch. From a Guardian piece: Kiscaden, who owns a coal mine in Kentucky, had an equally peculiar interpretation of history. He disputed that Forrest was a a founding member of the Klan, which he said played a positive role …
The Australian author Colleen McCullough died at age 77. The obituary in The Australian begins as follows: COLLEEN McCullough, Australia’s best selling author, was a charmer. Plain of feature, and certainly overweight, she was, nevertheless, a woman of wit and warmth. In one interview, she said: “I’ve never been into clothes or figure and the interesting …
Crucifixion of William of Norwich, Holy Trinity church, Loddon, Norfolk As a historian, I work on narrative, memory, and myth. I’m interested in how people respond to events by creating new stories or re-interpreting old ones, applying a narrative lens to the world around them. I have a specific focus on the 13th-century Mediterranean, but I …
Last May, I began an essay on gender norms and my daughter this way: When the rocket scientist Yvonne Brill died in March, The New York Times celebrated her as the maker of a “mean beef stroganoff” and “the world’s best mother.” When my 4-year-old daughter, Ellie, a wildly creative and interesting girl, finished a …