Old Christ Church in Alexandria. Virginia, attended by General Robert E. Lee in his youth and pictured here in 1911 (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign/Wikimedia Commons)

Divided Providence

Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War

Righteous Strife: How Warring Religious Nationalists Forged Lincoln’s Union by Richard Carwardine

“The Terrorist, He’s Watching” by Wislawa Szymborska

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Keepers of the Old Ways

Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive

Above the River of Your Longing

Two new prompts

Casa Gorín

“The Purse-Seine” by Robinson Jeffers

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Island Royalty

A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary

The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe by Marlene L. Daut

The Writer in the Family

The fiction of E. L. Doctorow gave a young man hope of connecting his father and his literary hero

Birthday Boy

“The Horses” by Ted Hughes

Poems read aloud, beautifully

So Special

“Those Who Pass Between Fleeting Words” by Mahmoud Darwish

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Washing Feet in Dolpo

On a medical mission at the top of the world, finding a healing dose of cheerful stoicism

Jennifer Hudnell

Painting with Paper

Raising Mank

The Academy Award–winning film about the making of Citizen Kane is really a window into the tumultuous, brutal side of Hollywood’s golden age

Eat, Pray, Love Like an Ancient

Why we should care about Epicurus

E Pluribus Unum?

Our national identity has always been hotly contested

American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783–1850Alan Taylor

Emma and Muhammad

If you’re dead or fictional, we’re the dating service for you!

Summer 2021

Responses to Our Spring 2021 Issue

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