Some 2,800 Americans Went To Spain [during

In His Fierce, Bold Determination To See The Lives Of Modern-day Slaves Up Close, Benjamin Skinner Reminds Me Of The British Abolitionist Of Two Hundred Years Ago, Zachary Macaulay, Who Once Traveled On A Slave Ship Across The Atlantic, Taking Notes. Skinner Goes Everywhere, From Border Crossings To Brothels To Bargaining Sessions With Dealers In Human Beings, To Bring Us This Vivid, Searing Account Of The Wide Network Of Human Trafficking And Servitude Which Spans Today's Globe.

One Of My Favourite Contemporary Fiction Writers Is A Texan, Ben Fountain. His Extraordinary Novel, Billy Lynn's Long Half-time Walk, All Takes Place Within The Half-time Show At A Dallas Cowboys Football Game. No One Has Better Summed Up The American Appetite For Spectacle, The Link Between Sports And Politics, And The Absolute Madness Of George W. Bush's Iraq War.

And Yet The World We Live In-its Divisions And Conflicts, Its Widening Gap Between Rich And Poor, Its Seemingly Inexplicable Outbursts Of Violence-is Shaped Far Less By What We Celebrate And Mythologize Than By The Painful Events We Try To Forget. Leopold's Congo Is But One Of Those Silences Of History.

Many Of The Principle Weapons That The Nazis Used During World War Ii Had Their First Trial In Combat In Spain - The Messerschmitt 109 Fighter Plane For Example, The Stuka Dive Bomber, The 88 Millimeter Artillery Piece, Which Could Be Used Both For Antiaircraft Purposes And Also Shelling On The Ground. And American Soldiers Were The Victims Of These Things In Spain, American Volunteers. So This War Was Really A Testing Ground For Hitler. And He Learned A Great Deal From It About The Strengths And Weaknesses Of These Different Weapons.

In Canada, The U.s. And Most Of Europe It May Be Easy To Take Political Stands, This Is Something For Which You Can Be Forced To Pay With Your Life, Or Your Freedom, In Many Other Parts Of The World, From Iran To Russia To Pakistan To China.