I Could Blame Peter the Great or Warren Beatty, But Either Way The Soviets Got to Me

I'd Better Brush up on My Russian Declensions as Our Cold War Nostalgia Gives Way to the Real Thing … Again

I never stood a chance. Of course Russia would seduce me.

It was the early 1980s and Robert Massie had just published his riveting Peter the Great biography (I devoured it on a family cruise, which surprisingly didn’t impress the teenage girls onboard); Warren Beatty had produced his magisterial (super long) Reds; and the ABC TV network broadcast The Day After, a movie about a Soviet nuclear strike that millions of high schoolers across the land, myself included, were encouraged to come together to watch, and then discuss. Because, you …

By Andrés Martinez | September 26, 2016

I Tried Writing This in the Time It Would Take a Russian Missile to Hit Washington—I Didn’t Finish

Measuring an Unfathomable Nuclear Menace in Minutes and Decades

By J. Peter Scoblic | September 26, 2016

Zócalo asked J. Peter Scoblic to write about the Cold War’s threat of nuclear annihilation for no more than 30 minutes, roughly the amount of time it would have taken …

The ’90s Were an Exuberant Interlude Between the Cold War and Sept. 11

As We Contemplate Sending the Clintons Back to the White House, It’s Time to Reassess a Pivotal Decade

By Andrés Martinez | May 2, 2016

Welcome back, ’90s; I’ve missed you.

The last decade of the previous millennium is suddenly all the rage, claiming a growing slice of our cultural mindshare. Monica Lewinsky is on …

Is Treason Now Just a Punch Line?

National Betrayal Can Be a Joke at the Oscars or the Plot of a Bestseller, But That’s Because We’re Living in a Golden Age of American Loyalty

by Andrés Martinez | March 2, 2015

When I was hired last year by Arizona State University, I faced the customary blizzard of new employee paperwork. You know the drill—those forms that ask you to select your …

A Nuclear Warhead in Suburban Orange County?

In the Hills Above Brea Lies a Spot That Could Have Started World War III

by Tyler Spicer | January 10, 2015

From here, atop a concrete tower in the Brea Hills, I have a commanding view of Southern California. Behind me, I can see, faintly, the top of the monumental skyscrapers …

Closing the Achievement Gap, Taking Down Gangs, and Ending World War II

October 23, 2012

Multiplication Is For White People: Raising Expectations for Other People’s Children
by Lisa Delpit

The nutshell: After spending decades interviewing and observing African-American students and their teachers, Southern University education scholar …

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