Richard White

I live and teach in a country as parochial as it is powerful, and there are moments that bring home to me how American I am. Several years ago a colleague, who had served as the American ambassador to Pakistan, tried to arrange a series of meetings between a visiting Pakistani general and teachers and students at Stanford University. In those innocent days before the semi-autonomous tribal...

In the village of Astee in County Kerry there is a pub where thirty years ago the lavatory consisted of a sink, a hole in the floor, and an alcove whose wall was thick with black mould. When it was occupied, the patrons used the hall, which was, except for the sink and the hole, indistinguishable from the lavatory. This is one thing I remember about the pub; the other thing I remember is that...

When I was a child in the mid-1950s, there was an American television programme called You Are There. The pretence was that a reporter, who in my mistaken memory was always Walter Cronkite, would be on hand as a historical event unfolded. No matter what the century, the reporters were from the 1950s, with notepads or microphone in hand. ‘General Washington, General Washington,’ Mr...