Stalin and the angels

Keke would have been so proud. When her son Joseph was growing up in the small, dusty town of Gori, she dreamed that one day he would be a priest. He did eventually study at…




What “Rustin” leaves out

Colman Domingo has just been nominated to win an Oscar for best actor. I hope he wins — and not just because he did an excellent job playing American civil rights leader Bayard Rustin in…




Myanmar: A challenge for the world’s unions

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) exists to certify that products coming from the world’s forests are produced responsibly. You may never had heard about the FSC, but if you look around your home, you’ll see…



Review: The Winter Queen, by Boris Akunin

I read this book, the first in the series of 13 novels about the late 19th century Russian detective Erast Fandorin, when it first appeared some twenty years ago. I remember little about the plot,…


Review: Letter of an Old Bolshevik

This is one of those books where saying who the writer was is contentious. It was initially published anonymously. Later, the exiled Russian Menshevik writer Boris Nicolaevsky was listed as the author. Nicolaevsky always claimed…