A Pioneer In This Genre [ Writing

It Sure Is A Rising Tide, And We Have A Particularly Nasty Exemplar Of It In The U.s., In Donald Trump.

A Pioneer In This Genre [ Writing About The Refugee Crisis] : The Book A Seventh Man, By The Great John Berger, Decades Ago Evoked The Lives Of Migrant Workers In Europe.

You Know, By 1936, Hitler Was Already Talking Very Loudly About His Desire To Expand To The East. Mussolini, In 1935, Went And Then In The Next Year, Conquered Ethiopia, Acquiring Himself A Colony. So People At The Time Really Saw Fascism Not Just As An Evil But As An Aggressive Evil That Seemed To Be Spreading.

I Think In Many Ways, The Spanish Civil War Was The First Battle Of World War Ii. After All, Where Else In The World At This Point Did You Have Americans In Uniform Who Were Being Bombed By Nazi Planes Four Years Before The U.s. Entered World War Ii? Hitler And Mussolini Jumped In On The Side Of Francisco Franco And His Spanish Nationalists, Sent Them Vast Amounts Of Military Aid, Airplanes, Tanks - And Mussolini Sent 80,000 Ground Troops As Well - Because They Wanted A Sympathetic Ally In Power. So I Think It Really Was The Opening Act Of World War Ii.

The Late Nadine Gordimer In South Africa, For Example, Had A Wonderful Ability To Get Her Country's Injustices And Contradictions Down On Paper. Ditto For Her Countryman The Great Playwright Athol Fugard.