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Biking through Colombia

In Spring 2016, Julia and I decided to take a 1,200-km cycling trip across Colombia. I'm slowly publishing entries from my journal that document our experience with slow travel — our precarious journey there, our month-long cycling tour, and finally our return home.

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Book review: The Half Has Never Been Told

Growing up, I never learned much about American history. The event I can most easily recall is probably that we burned down their White House during the War of 1812. I know that a civil war happened. I know that it had something to do with slavery, and that Abraham Lincoln ended slavery. I had a …

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The Half has Never Been Told Book Review

Edward E. Baptist
Subtitled <em>Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism</em>, this is a burning indictment of the assumptions a lot of Americans (and myself) have about slavery. Slavery was neither dull, nor agrarian, nor destined to fade away in the march of progress. It was central to America's growth, and everyone (including the North and Europe) was complicit.

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I: Emigrants & II: Unto a New Land Book Review

Vilhelm Moberg
Parts I and II of a four-part historical epic, these books follow a Swedish peasant family from their back-breaking, meagre existence in feudal Sweden as they travel on a disease-ridden boat to land on a strange new shore. A heartbreaking, exhausting read.

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