Opinion History - The Boston Globe

An employee mopped a looted supermarket in Valencia, Carabobo State, in May 2017 following protests against President Nicolás Maduro, whose opponents blamed him for Venezuela's dire economic mess.

Ideas

Then as now, hunger in the streets of my Venezuela

I became inured to the sight of people rummaging through garbage bins for something to eat. When a young man begged me for a meal, the depth of my country’s humanitarian crisis really hit me. 3:00 a.m.

Middlebury College, as seen in 2013 from the chapel,

Columns

Hypocrisy at Middlebury College

When the school besmirched an alumnus for his short-lived support of eugenics, it kept remarkably quiet about its own disgraceful — and lengthy — history on the subject. 3:00 a.m.

City-living muckraker and family man Ray Stannard Baker was known for hard-hitting reporting that decried social injustice. Writing as farm-dwelling bachelor David Grayson, he caused a sensation with books about life's simpler pleasures.

Ideas

A New England literary mystery: Who really wrote these best-selling guides to country living?

The author of books that offered quaint wisdom about a life of contentment wasn’t what his publishers said he was. The hunt to unmask him led to a most unlikely source. 3:00 a.m.

Middlebury College, with the iconic chapel at the center, in 2017.

Columns

Middlebury College flunks a history test

The school has renamed its iconic chapel after reducing an admirable historical figure to a single negative characteristic. 9:32 a.m.

World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle pounded out a story in Anzio, Italy.

Ideas

The WWII newspaper column that dared to illuminate death

Ernie Pyle’s brand of reporting wasn’t much like today’s journalism. But his most memorable work excelled at conveying big things simply. 3:00 a.m.

Henry Kissinger, then the national security advisor, briefed the press on May 14, 1969.

Ideas

Henry Kissinger at 100: A contradictory legacy of peace and terror

The former secretary of state was a master of great-power diplomacy. Yet he was willfully clueless about much of the world. 5:30 p.m.

Karl Gönner, the Nazi whose life and legacy is explored in “Fatherland: A Memoir of War, Conscience, and Family Secrets" by his grandson Burkhard Bilger.

Ideas

When someone close to you has done very bad things

The unexpected rewards that come from reckoning with crimes committed by friends and family. 3:46 p.m.

A Palestinian woman refugee and her child are separated from their home by the "green line" after the 1948 war.

Columns

The real origin of the Palestinians’ catastrophe

They rejected a two-state solution with Israel in 1948 and have paid the price ever since. 3:00 a.m.