Opinion History - The Boston Globe

Ideas

Rethinking our relationship with the past

A new book by Tobias Becker argues that it’s time to stop slinging the word "nostalgia" as a sloppy, all-purpose insult against perceived enemies of progress. 3:00 a.m.

Thomas Paine in an oil painting by Laurent Dabos, circa 1791.

Ideas

Thomas Paine is overdue for recognition as America’s greatest Founding Father

Let's give him a proper memorial. 10:51 a.m.

Artist Ricardo Gomez worked in Roxbury last summer on a spray-painted portrait of rapper/songwriter/record producer Guru, whose full name was Keith Elam and who was also known as Keithy E. He died in 2010.

Ideas

On the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, a look back at Boston’s forgotten rap history

Boston’s overlooked and underappreciated Black music scene and how it affected rap over the years. 12:46 p.m.

Film depictions of Leonard Bernstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Mollie Burkhart are among the many recent examples of historical fiction in our culture. The publishing industry is also a big driver of this trend, as English professor Alexander Manshel explores in a new book called “Writing Backwards.”

Ideas

We’re drowning in historical fiction

Books about the past get most of the prestige. That’s boxing writers in — and some more so than others. 12:14 p.m.

A demonstrator outside the Israeli Embassy in London after the Hamas attacks.

Ideas

9/11, apartheid, and other metaphors that make people misunderstand Israel and Palestine

Terms commonly used to describe this conflict reflect outsiders’ preoccupations instead of astute political judgments. 3:00 a.m.

On May 2, 1949, Chinese Communist tanks entered the streets of Beijing. In that civil war, Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists lost to Mao Zedong's Communists and retreated to the island of Taiwan.

Ideas

War is a cost of holding on to history too tightly

We often presume that conflict begins over resources or economic interests. But the explanation can be more visceral. 3:00 a.m.

A statue of Christopher Columbus in Providence was vandalized in 2019. It later was moved to a park in Johnston, R.I.

Columns

I used to defend Columbus as ‘magnificent.’ I don’t anymore.

Reading what his contemporaries wrote about him opened my eyes. 12:12 p.m.

An eternal military presence in Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh. May 1991.

Ideas

The things they could not carry

More than 100,000 Armenians fled Nagorno-Karabakh last month. For Armenians there and in the diaspora, it was the latest reminder of all that has been left behind. 3:00 a.m.