The New York Times
Kinder, Gentler Fascism
This summer the president of the Italian state broadcasting system, RAI, addressed the national congress of the National Alliance, the right-wing party led principally by what are known as ”post-Fascists.” The official, Antonio Baldassarre, announced that it was time to ”rewrite history” — that is, as it is presented on Italian television. ”The old RAI…
Continue readingBackward Runs French. Reels the Mind.
Those who have studied French but haven’t been in France for a while may find themselves confused when they overhear conversations that sound familiar but remain largely incomprehensible. Gradually they may realize, or some kind soul may explain, that what they are hearing is a popular slang called Verlan in which standard French spellings or…
Continue readingMan in Black
MUSSOLINI By R. J. B. Bosworth. Illustrated. 584 pp. New York: Oxford University Press. $35. Americans have tended to think of Benito Mussolini as a cross between a gangster and a buffoon, a ”Sawdust Caesar” who hijacked Italian democracy and led his country to disaster as Hitler’s junior partner. But in recent decades a number…
Continue readingTextbook Publishers Learn to Avoid Messing With Texas
”Out of Many,” the work of four respected historians, is one of the biggest sellers among American history college textbooks in the United States, but it is not likely to be available to Texas high school students taking advanced placement history. Conservative groups in Texas objected to two paragraphs in the nearly 1,000-page text that…
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