WWII
Church Bells and Whistles
In Minneapolis, whistles warn of ICE agents’ approach. How far do they echo the church bells that guided resistance in occupied France? History does not repeat, but in the details from the ground in Minnesota and the work of historians of wartime Europe, parallels emerge that may be instructive.
The House in Zabbougha
A British-Lebanese author recalls his family's experiences of war, famine, coups and migration — and the enduring mountain home that witnessed it all.
Eight Decades On, Vanuatu Still Struggles With America’s World War II Legacy
America’s wartime sailor turned Pulitzer Prize-winning author James A. Michener celebrated the South Pacific’s “infinite specks of coral.” But those precious coastlines and the Indigenous people who relied on them were left to suffer when the U.S. dumped tons of military equipment and food into the waters off Vanuatu.
Swastikas in Damascus
A death notice appeared in a Lebanese village north of Beirut last September of a man with a curious first name. It took me back to my school days in Syria and the unusual interest many of my fellow schoolboys had in the history of the Second World War.