Some members of my family take great glee in reminding me that I’m “old.” While I prefer the word “mature,” the truth is that I’ve been an historian for 40 years, earning a Ph.D. from Princeton University in diplomatic and military history. (This was in the ancient times when we typed our dissertations on manual typewriters with carbon paper.)

I’ve written a number of books, as well as articles and reviews, but what I most thoroughly enjoy is teaching in university. I’ve had some GREAT students, the majority of them are Masters students. We’ve had some excellent seminars and it’s truly rewarding to help them develop their Theses. Every semester we have a few major questions, but in short order all my students learn that the overarching question is “why.”

To this day, when I read the newspaper (yes, a real newspaper!) along with the radio, tv, and podcasts, I still want to know “why.” Most of the time there’s an historical component—sometime recent, and sometime lost in the mists of time. I do believe that understanding the “why’s” from the past help us to makes more sense of what we’re dealing with in the here and now.