Port-au-Prince’s Territories

A panoramic view of the big city from the hillside Parc de Belleville. Far from the picturesque quais of the Seine and the chic quarters to the west, a  neighborhood of small, deteriorating houses was destroyed to create this park in 1988, but some semblance of a neighborly “village”...

Orinoco River From Lapham’s Quarterly: On June 6, 1800, nearly a year into his scientific journey through South America, Alexander von Humboldt arrived at a mission on the Orinoco River called La Concepción de Uruana. It was a stunning site. The village sat at the foot of granite mountains,...

Quintessentially No. 8 | by David Elworthy

Landfall Review

Within a decade or two of their first arrival in New Zealand, English-speaking settlers began to note the changes wrought upon their native tongue by their experiences in a new environment – and their...

Tver, Russia, Inna Gluschenko From Le Monde Diplomatique: There is no need to travel to remote areas of Russia to find evidence of the country’s demographic crisis. Tver and its region (known as Kalinin from 1931 to 1990) are only a few hours from Moscow, but have recorded more...

China’s Other Revolution | by Edward S. Steinfeld

Boston Review

Ai may be the most recognizable name globally, but other detainees have included rights activists, lawyers, bloggers, journalists, and academics. Some have been formally charged with “creating a disturbance” or “inciting...

by Teju Cole I am at work on a book about Lagos, a non-fictional narrative. Why Lagos? It is the biggest city in Africa, and the fastest growing in the world. And it was my home for seventeen years, from infancy until I finished high-school. But the most important...

Bhubaneshwar, India by Satyabrata Mitra Interaction I: Worker in Atos Origin India Pvt Ltd. The following is the reflection of a worker (software developer) in Atos Origin India Private Limited (Mumbai), a part of Atos Origin Global, an European MNC. The worker desired to share certain things with other...

The Zaporozhian Cossacks write a letter to the Sultan of Turkey, Ilya Yefimovich Repin, 1880-1891 by Elena Strelnikova The Cossacks have played an important part at various times in Russian history. Now their ranks are diluted by intermarriage and the admission of non-Cossacks. Elena Strelnikova ponders the attempts to...