Ten days in Iran: 1
From September 7-17, Susana and I were part of a 12-person tour of Iran organized by The Nation magazine, from Tehran to Kashan to Isfahan to Persepolis to Shiraz, in the company of an extraordinarily well-prepared and multilingual guide (Ali Sadrnia, the tall man in the back row of the photo of our group, taken … read more »
Coming events!
I’ve got lots to tell you but all our travels and then a connectivity glitch have interrupted my efforts to post. Here is a quick list of upcoming topics, to be developed once we finally get home and can catch up and settle into our work routine. Iran: Our ten-day tour (September 7-17) with pictures, … read more »
The Mediterranean world circa 1520
Leo the African by Amin Maalouf My rating: 4 of 5 stars Amin Malouf’s first novel is a wonderfully vivid reimagining of the life of Hasan al-Wazzan, better known as Leo Africanus, the 16th century chronicler whose Della descrittione dell’Africa et delle cose notabili che iui sono was for decades Europe’s principal reference work on … read more »
Contingency
Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard M. Rorty My rating: 5 of 5 stars Rorty is a delightfully stimulating conversation companion, starting a conversation in my head as I read and recognize many observations and have to puzzle over others. In three major sections, he presents his view of how we humans can struggle for … read more »
The resistible rise of You-Know-Who
Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America by Richard M. Rorty My rating: 4 of 5 stars If for no other reason, you will want to read this book for its explanation and gloomy prediction— in 1998, 18 years before the event —of the sudden emergence of Trump in what we thought was a … read more »