I couldn't think of another city in the world that lined its streets with stone leviathans honoring failed rebels against the state.

Even aimless journeys have a purpose.

I am an agnostic on most matters of faith, but on the subjects of maps I have always been a true believer. It is on the map, therefore it is, and I am.

I couldn't think of another city in the world that lined its streets with stone leviathans honoring failed rebels against the state.

During a mock battle attended by President Warren Harding in 1921, Marine Corps General Smedley D. Butler exhumed the arm [of Stonewall Jackson; he didn't believe it was buried there] and reburied it in a metal box.

There are people one knows and people one doesn't. One shouldn't cheapen the former by feigning intimacy with the latter.

The past was a consumable, subject to the national preference for familiar products. And history, in America, is a dish best served plain. The first course could include a dollop of Italian in 1492, but not Spanish spice or French sauce or too much Indian corn. Nothing too filling or fancy ahead of the turkey and pumpkin pie, just the way Grandma used to cook it.