How Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller confronted an age of optimism.

What we can all learn from William Allen White. Uh, who?

Old wounds weep as the Baader-Meinhof gang hits German theaters.

A new champion of docu-mendacity is born.

Perceptions of scandal fluctuate with time and place.

James Galbraith’s prediction of the collapse of the nation’s financial system has earned him a well-deserved reputation for prescience. His understanding of recent history, however, is another matter.

What you see of 1990s-era America depends on where you stand.

In Slumdog Millionaire, director Danny Boyle’s fast-paced, frenetic style suits the chaotic, East-meets-West world of modern Mumbai.

Historians traffic in characters and plots. They appreciate the extent to which timing, location and personality matter. Anthropologists, on the other hand, eschew the importance of contingency, inadvertence and timing, treating humans like predictable atoms, not willful Adams.

Are Ayn Rand and her adept Alan Greenspan to blame for our economic woes? Answering that question requires something more than parody and less than unqualified praise.