The first thing anyone will notice about your vessel is the smell of death, desperation and suffering. You’re the captain of a slave ship sailing the middle passage. You set sail in merry old England to trade the fruits of the emerging industrial revolution. Your business partners in West Africa will pay you with black gold; slaves. Your...
According to cherished legend, one late October day in 1517, Martin left his house carrying a piece of parchment, a hammer, and a couple of nails. Who knows what his mood was? Maybe he was happy. His document was an invitation for his university colleagues to meet in a pub and spend a riotous night in rigorous academic debate. At least...
A destroyed city has a certain smell. Dust of smashed bricks mingles with the sweet stench of bodies that are still buried under the rubble. There is a faint whiff of phosphor, the main ingredient of incendiary bombs. It is overlaid with the odor of cooking fires. They are boiling rutabaga, the staple of the German diet in the Berlin of 1945. It...
