Category Archives: Uncategorized

Doesn’t the lack of solution to the “Cyprus problem” confirm the fact that peace activists are rarely effective, as a friend in the know suggests to me? I am quite ready to believe her as I fly to Cyprus. My … Continue reading →

Dear Simone Veil, Your passing on June 30, 2017 barely made a ripple in the American news media; and yet even far away, there is so much we can celebrate and learn from you. You had it ‘all’: good looks, … Continue reading →

Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help Larissa MacFarquhar, New York: Penguin Press, 2015 This is a strange book about an unusual kind of “strangers”, people endowed with impossible idealism and overpowered by … Continue reading →

Retrieving an alternate tradition of US foreign policy… Response to “Friendless Obama needs Middle Eastern allies of convenience”, Financial Times, Wednesday September 24, 2014 Sir, Francis Fukayama and Karl Eikenberry critique President Obama for “overpromising” when he states that the … Continue reading →

Why all the mourning as I prepare to depart? “Home” is being dismantled. I give away the few objects I bought to improve my daily life: a cotton area rug, Ikea lights, two humidifiers, a nice green plant, a printer. … Continue reading →

I still remember discovering a French translation of “The Ugly American” on my mother’s bedside table in my early mid-teen in Switzerland. I read some pages feeling slightly puzzled. Yet it confirmed my vague impressions of the Americans as a … Continue reading →

Do the European Union and Russia share a similar difficulty in coming to terms with the memories of their political origins?  This question comes up at the end of my second class session on The Politics of European Integration with … Continue reading →