July-August 2003

SEGREGATION, NOW AND THENI enjoyed Drew Gilpin Faust’s delightful "Living History" (May-June, page 38), about racial segregation in…

Imagine: A complete stranger promises a brand-new digital camera if you’ll send $100. Once the check clears, you’re told, the camera will be in…

A century ago, psychoanalysts declared that the human personality was largely fixed by age five. More recently, biologically oriented…

The 1995 truck bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City hastened a revolution in urban design and planning. Architectural terms…

When Monet’s Impression Sunrise, a sensuous if sleepy painting of Le Havre’s harbor, debuted in 1874, it enraged critics. They abhorred the…

The history of Salem witchcraft has its own history, its own long, tortuous, emotionally freighted sequence of tellings and retellings…

After Jihad, by Noah Feldman ’92, Jf ’01 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $24). Is Islamic democracy possible? Should America help bring it about?…

For 42 summers, George Howe Colt ’76 repaired to the four-story, 11-bedroom ark of a summer house his great-grandfather Ned Atkinson built on a…

Some homicides just won’t die. The 1849 murder and dismemberment of Boston Brahmin George Parkman, A.B. 1809, a compulsive, disagreeable, and…

José Rigau would appreciate help in identifying the person (possibly French historian Charles Seignobos) who defined enlightened…

THEATER. The American Repertory Theatre presents the return engagement of George Gershwin Alone, by Hershey Felder, from July 5 to 26, followed…

Last fall, World War II veteran Lawrence Lader ’41 and several octogenarian Harvard classmates marched in uniform in front of the White House to…

Long before it became a fraternity of the atrociously behaved and was taken out behind the barn and shot, the Pi Eta Speakers Club occupied a…

A vibrant democracy depends upon important foundations: adequate socioeconomic conditions, elite commitment, some consensus within the society…

Under Saddam Hussein’s rule, Iraq amassed about $100 billion in debt. This estimate is rough, and it will be months before the details about…

Science is like fishing. Patience, perseverance, and skill are part of it. Luck also plays a large role. But finding the right location often…

"I have not wandered very far afield,” wrote Henry Francis du Pont, A.B. 1903, in his fiftieth reunion report. With characteristic…

The pyramids and the Great Sphinx rise inexplicably from the desert at Giza, relics of a vanished culture. They dwarf the approaching sprawl of…

Humberto started to pace back and forth across the floor of the cinder-block home, cradling his son in his arms. There had to be a story. In…

One might have anticipated that the volumes of talk from Harvard podiums during Commencement week, so soon after the smoke cleared in Baghdad…

Two women and nine men received honorary degrees at Harvard’s 352nd Commencement. In the absence of a University marshal, Provost Steven Hyman…

Mather House seniors, from left, Samantha Goodwin, of Freeburg, Illinois; Jordan Goss, of Arlington, Texas; Paul Kwak, of Beavercreek…

VITAL STATISTICS The University awarded 6,349 earned degrees, 11 honorary degrees, and 290 certificates at its 352nd Commencement. Diplomas went…

I doubt that I was the first farm boy accepted to Harvard University, but when I arrived in Cambridge you certainly could have fooled me. Fresh…

We must love one another or die. This line appears near the end of W.H. Auden’s poem "September First, 1939." Perhaps you’ve heard it…

(as prepared for delivery) INTRODUCTION This has been a good year for the University. We continue to make first-rate faculty appointments…

Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, A.M. ’62, was the recipient of the 2003 Radcliffe Medal and gave an address at the Radcliffe Association annual…

Elena Kagan, J.D. ’86, once a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and later an adviser on domestic policy issues to President…

When Harvard purchased land from the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (MTA) in 2000, it was an historic moment: for the first time, the…

Much more aggressive education, a new office to provide "the first line of support" to students with concerns about sexual violence…

Robert M Gogan, Jr. Photograph by Stu Rosner Rob Gogan is Harvard’s recycling and waste-management impresario. “It’s a dream job,”…

Masters in the House(s) Jay and Cheryl Harris Rose Lincoln / Harvard News Service Dean of Harvard College Harry R. Lewis announced on…

The newly merged offices of dean of Harvard College and dean of undergraduate education have been entrusted to Benedict H. Gross ’71, Ph.D. ’78…

The data—or at least some data—are now in on the effects of Harvard’s new Wage and Benefits Parity Policy (WBPP) for custodial…

Baker Library is empty of its books, staff, and readers. It is doing business elsewhere, at several locations both on and off the Business…

Offering a confident defense of globalization, now assailed by many critics, Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers delivered this year’s Edwin…

In creating a diverse portfolio for Harvard’s $17.5-billion endowment, the University’s investment arm, Harvard Management Company (HMC)…

Where are the frontiers of knowledge? Increasingly, at the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines. One way to trace emerging fields is…

Dental Doings Dave Destroche Three decades and more after its 11,000-square-foot “interim” building was created, the Harvard…

My first Harvard memory is deciding not to go here. I had never really considered attending, but my high-school principal, a big Harvard…

At the end of every e-mail from Caryn Davies ’04 is a quotation from poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “You see, I want a lot./Perhaps I want…

Half a continent apart, on the weekend of May 31, three Harvard crews pulled off a feat unprecedented in the history of college rowing:…

The Harvard men’s and women’s tennis teams were both undefeated in the Ivy League this spring. The women (19-4, 7-0 Ivy) had the best winning…

She made a high-energy but graceful entrance, nothing too theatrical, sat in a director’s chair at a butcherblock coffee table in this…

Harvard Medalists Three alumni received the Harvard Medal and were publicly honored for their extraordinary service by President Lawrence H…

June 4 marked what its president, Raine Figueroa ’84, M.B.A. ’91, said was the last formal annual meeting of the Radcliffe Association (RA)…

Harvardians journeying to the north side of San Antonio—the "Texas Hill Country"—may need only look skyward for a familiar…

"Your wooden arm you hold outstretched to shake with passers-by." Denison Beach has been hanging around the front steps of…

Artemas Ward, A.B. 1748, A.M. ’51, lay ill in bed on April 19, 1775, as embattled farmers fired the shot heard round the world. But when a…