From Adversity to Achievement

If we were to compare our own lives with the lives of people who lived at the turn of the last century in the United States, the first things that would come to our attention would be the many differences that separate us from them. Our early 20th-century counterparts...

Among the many fictional characters who rub shoulders with real historical figures in the pages of E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 novel Ragtime, one who stands out as particularly heroic is Tateh, a Latvian Jew who immigrates to the United States in search of a better life for...

Talent is something that’s easy to recognize retrospectively. We look back and see the great things that certain people have accomplished, and we infer from this that they must have been quite talented. Many people’s careers, however, depend on their ability to do...

In this series we’ve looked at many entrepreneurs whose hard work resulted in small victories, which then built the groundwork for greater success in the future. However, as we recount these successes we should bear in mind that failure is also a major part of the...

When the historian Alexis de Tocqueville visited the young United States in the 1830s, one of the facets of American life that left the deepest impression on him was the variety and intensity of opinions held by citizens from every walk of life, expressed both in...

In many ways the progress of female emancipation can be credited to the efforts of exceptional women in broadening the definition of “women’s work” over the past several centuries. At the time of the Renaissance in Europe, a typical upper-class woman was not expected...

For about a century of American history, starting in the 1840s, the only medium of news and entertainment that was truly nationwide was the magazine. Unlike books, which were often too expensive to be accessible, and newspapers, which were generally circulated only...

In 1965, science fiction writer Frank Herbert published his first novel, Dune. Its story of political intrigue was set in a fictional universe full of exotic details, including one which was quite ironic: although Dune was a futuristic story, it took place in a world...

The decade after World War II is often looked back on by nostalgic Americans as an era of peaceful prosperity, a time when people had more to be happy about than ever before in history. There is some truth to this rosy-eyed image, but it’s far from a complete picture....

In 1773 Catherine the Great of Russia placed an order for a 944-piece ceramic dinner and dessert service from an English pottery firm. Ordering new china was something monarchs did all the time, but there was one thing that made this case unusual. Instead of...