The Russian Origins of the First World War

Casting a contrarian eye on the first major conflict of the twentieth century, Sean McMeekin finds the roots of WWI inside Russia, whose leaders deliberately sought -- for their own ends -- to expand a brawl that the Germans wanted to keep local. The author tracks the fallout of these antique plots right down to the present geopolitical landscape.

June 20: Today is World Refugee Day, as designated by the United Nations in 2001. According to the renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, the modern refugee problem should not be attributed to wars and despots but to a civilization that…

Very few debut novels exhibit the charm, assurance, emotional depth and bravura fabulation which the lucky reader will discover in Helene Wecker's

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