Poland’s “May Coup”–1926

These days I am deep in the history of the years between the two world wars. Some of it was familiar at the point that I began, at least in broad outlines. But the fact of the matter is that a whole lot of history happened across Europe in those twenty-one years that never popped…

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Dangerous Melodies

  Several years ago, I reported on an excellent book  about how pianist Van Cliburn’s victory at Russia’s first Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958 helped change the course of the Cold War. It was a revelation, but I didn’t realize that the culture battles of the Cold War were only one example of the role that…

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