10 Oct 2015   ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN – “We need a new name,” a senior official in Kazakhstan  told me.  “People keep confusing us with all the other crazy “stans.”  We are not like them. Quite right.  Compared to neighboring Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan is an island of […]


May 2, 2015   It was 1967. The war in Vietnam was raging.  I was 24 years old, just out of graduate school in New York City.  Cambridge University had accepted me to do a doctorate history.   But no. In a burst of youthful patriotism, I concluded it was every […]


Originally published on Huffington Post – Posted: 07/09/2009 5:12 am EDT Updated: 05/25/2011 1:25 pm EDT   This ancient fortress city that guards the traditional invasion route along the Meuse River from Germany into France is a good place to reflect on the lingering myths that still cloud our understanding […]