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How an International Perspective Changes Our Understanding of the Civil War

Don H. Doyle History News Network
What value would be added by viewing the war from outside the nation? How does it change our understanding of the war to situate it within a larger international context? One simple answer is that the war mattered greatly to the world. In newspapers and magazines, in meeting halls, churches, taverns, lecture halls, workers unions, and at posh dinner parties, foreigners followed the war with great interest and they debated what it meant for their future.

Venezuela sanctions: Maduro Fumes at 'imperialists' as US Targets Officials

Sibylla Brodzinsky The Guardian
In an executive order issued by Barack Obama, the White House said the situation in Venezuela posed an “extraordinary threat” to US national security. Maduro, the Venezuelan president, reacted with anger in a televised address on Tuesday night, calling on his country’s Congress to grant him additional decree powers to “fight imperialism”.

Word by Word: A Linguist Reads the Menu

Kent Black The Boston Globe
Stanford linguistics professor and MacArthur Fellow Dan Jurafsky links the origins and evolution of foods to history, culture, tradition and trends. Wide-ranging topics include sexual metaphors in restaurant reviews, relationship of price to the number of syllables in menu descriptions, and the language on potato chip bags...among other things.

Injured Workers Suffer As 'Reforms' Limit Workers' Compensation Benefits

Howard Berkes and Michael Grabell NPR and ProPublica
Over the past decade, state after state has been dismantling America's workers' comp system with disastrous consequences for many of the hundreds of thousands of people who suffer serious injuries at work each year, a ProPublica and NPR investigation has found. The cutbacks have been so drastic in some places that they virtually guarantee injured workers will plummet into poverty. Workers often battle insurance companies for years to get the surgeries, prescriptions and

Word by Word: A Linguist Reads the Menu

Kent Black The Boston Globe
Stanford linguistics professor and MacArthur Fellow Dan Jurafsky links the origins and evolution of foods to history, culture, tradition and trends. Wide-ranging topics include sexual metaphors in restaurant reviews, relationship of price to the number of syllables in menu descriptions, and the language on potato chip bags...among other things.

New and Exciting at Portside

The Moderators at Portside Portside
There are some new things on Portside that we are pleased to be able to call your attention to.