There is nothing harder, at moments, than talking to someone who has all the power of silence.

For the first time, I had been struck by the excitement of the traveler who looks history in her subtle face.

In the end, I always act from the heart, even if I also value reason and tradition. I wish I could explain why, but I don't know.

My guess is that he remembers some of me, some of us together, and the rest rolled off him like topsoil in a flash flood.

When you handle books all day long, every new one is a friend and a temptation.

Natalie Bakopoulos has that rare gift, the ability to imagine a traumatic historical event in the form of individual lives and ordinary details. The Green Shore is compelling, personal, and full of quietly real moments.

As a historian, I have learned that, in fact, not everyone who reaches back into history can survive it. And it is not only reaching back that endangers us; sometimes history itself reaches inexorably forward for us with its shadowy claws.