Light Seeking Light

And here we are in Venlo, not far from Amsterdam and site of the 2012 Floriade, one of the world's largest horticultural expositions. We were quite lucky to be able to see it because the next on...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/11/through-heart-of-europe-part-19.html

Leaving Rotterdam we passed through many miles of industrial landscapes punctuated here and there by quaint villages. Arriving eventually at the Kinderdijk once again. ...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/11/through-heart-of-europe-part-18.html

Sailing north through the night we headed for our next port of call -- Rotterdam. On the Meuse River approaching the Erasmus Bridge. Rotterdam is one of the largest ports in Europe. I...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/11/sailing-north-through-night-we-headed.html

Our next stop was at the lovely little town of Veere. Five centuries ago it was a major port dominating the wool trade between Scotland and Holland, but today it is a quiet community of only 1,5...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/10/through-heart-of-europe-part-16-veere.html

I suppose I should say something about the recent death of prominent Marxist historian, Eric Hobsbawm, but I won't. My mother taught me that if I couldn't say anything good about someone, stay s...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/10/i-suppose-i-should-say-something-about.html

Leaving the boat we boarded a bus at Terneuzen that after a short journey deposited us near the center of Ghent, one of the oldest settlements in Western Europe. It has been inhabited since the ...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/10/through-heart-of-europe-part-15-ghent.html

When I was in graduate school the unholy trinity of Race, Class, and Gender was rapidly displacing other, more traditional, concerns as subjects for historical inquiry. Now the process is comple...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/10/when-i-was-in-graduate-school-unholy.html

Well, I'm finally back in the country and able to start blogging again. While I get myself organized here are some very neat photos of contemporary China from the Boston Globe.

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/10/im-baaaaack.html

Leaving Antwerp we sailed through the afternoon past industrial landscapes. I love industrial landscapes -- can't help it, I grew up near Pittsburgh. ...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/09/through-heart-of-europe-part-13-antwerp.html

The only question is, does he pray to the picture or to the empty chair?

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/09/true-believer.html

We disembarked in Antwerp, and took a walking tour of the city. Bicycles and poetry. Along the riverfront. A riverside statue commemorating a local legend about a giant who would att...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/08/through-heart-of-europe-part-13-antwerp.html

Heading south from the Kinderdijk our next stop was Willemstad, a sixteenth-century fortified town named for William of Orange, the leader of the Dutch revolt against Spain. The town has been pre...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/08/through-heart-of-europe-part-12.html

Our next destination was the town of Nieuw-Lekkerland, not far from Rotterdam. Our purpose was to visit the famous Kinderdijk. On our way we passed some glorious scenery. And finally docke...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/08/through-heart-of-europe-part-11.html

After Bonn the boat headed down the Rhine toward Dusseldorf while several of us boarded a bus for a side-trip to see the magnificent collection of 19th and 20th Century art at the Kroller-Muller ...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/08/through-heart-of-europe-part-10-kroller.html

The next stop on our river journey was Bonn, a mid-sized city on the Rhine that had a half-century of glory as the capital of West, and later United Germany. Starting in 1998, though, most govern...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/08/through-heart-of-europe-part-9-bonn.html

Rupert Murdock has the best short assessment of the situation with regard to climate change. He recently tweeted: "Climate change very slow but real. So far all cures worse than disease." That is...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/08/rupert-murdock-has-best-short.html

Ever since the Enlightenment scholars have sought to create a "science" of history -- that is, to use scientific methodology to discover deep structural changes in the human condition over time a...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/08/cliodynamics-latest-attempt-to-model.html

After Trier we sailed back to Traben-Trarbach where we once again tied up along the bank through the night and much of the following day. Time enough for a leisurely stroll through the towns. A...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/08/through-heart-of-europe-part-8-traben.html

We docked at Trier in the Rhineland-Palatinate, which claims to be the oldest city in Germany. It certainly is old, having been settled more than two thousand years ago. It is also the oldest sea...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/08/through-heart-of-europe-part-7-trier.html

After leaving Koblenz we sailed through the wind country along the Mosel River. Here we are passing the picturesque town of Cochem. The Reichsburg Castle looms over Cochem. I was standing be...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/07/through-heart-of-europe-part-6-mosel.html

Throughout its national history America has had a love-hate relationship with capitalism. There have been powerful critics -- Jeffersonian Republicans, Jacksonian Democrats, Southern slave-holdin...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/07/why-has-cultural-critique-of-capitalism.html

Condi cuts loose with her ideas on the direction American foreign policy should take in the future. Her major points: These are times of rapid and fundamental change -- if we wish to have some ...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/07/condi-on-future-of-american-foreign.html

One of the most celebrated of France's "New Philosophers" was Pascal Bruckner. Celebrated, that is, until recently. Now he is one of the most vilified figures in Europe. Why? What happened? Bru...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/07/apocalyptic-totalitarianism.html

Back on the boat we headed down the middle course of Rhine past numerous picturesque castles and towns. Here are a few of the things we saw. Through the morning we sailed past castle after cast...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/07/through-heart-of-europe-part-5-rhine.html

Over the course of my lifetime attitudes and values regarding sex have been radically transformed, and as they have the range of discourse on the subject have changed even more dramatically. When...

http://lightseekinglight.blogspot.com/2012/07/thinking-and-not-thinking-about-sex.html