What We’re Reading

Preeti Aroon: Abby Sunderland’s blog: The 16-year-old Californian is sailing solo around the world, nonstop and unassisted, and last week sailed around Cape Horn (the tip of South America), becoming the youngest person to do so solo. Abby isn’t the only 16-year-old on the high seas. Last December in WWR, I mentioned circumnavigator Jessica Watson, ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

Preeti Aroon: Abby Sunderland’s blog: The 16-year-old Californian is sailing solo around the world, nonstop and unassisted, and last week sailed around Cape Horn (the tip of South America), becoming the youngest person to do so solo. Abby isn’t the only 16-year-old on the high seas. Last December in WWR, I mentioned circumnavigator Jessica Watson, who is now sailing east across the Indian Ocean in the home stretch toward her native Australia.

Preeti Aroon: Abby Sunderland’s blog: The 16-year-old Californian is sailing solo around the world, nonstop and unassisted, and last week sailed around Cape Horn (the tip of South America), becoming the youngest person to do so solo. Abby isn’t the only 16-year-old on the high seas. Last December in WWR, I mentioned circumnavigator Jessica Watson, who is now sailing east across the Indian Ocean in the home stretch toward her native Australia.

Elizabeth Dickinson: The murder of white supremacist Eugene Terre’Blanche in South Africa is a chilling one, showing just how raw the wounds of apartheid still are, as well as just how extreme positions still exist on both sides. I am reading the Mail and Guardian to sort through this, one of the country’s best papers. Most interesting of all is an interview from last year with Terre’Blanche about his extremist goals. At least as ominous is this April Fools political cartoon from the paper that calls out ANC youth leader Malema for singing ‘Shoot the Boer’ – the very song blamed (rightly or wrongly) for inciting violence against Terre’Blanche.

Blake Hounshell: Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob. Two reporters, Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, blew the lid off the FBI’s corrupt ties to Irish mobster Whitey Bolger for the Boston Globe and told the full story in this landmark 2000 book. Black Mass has very little to do with foreign policy, but it’s a killer story and makes for great reading.

Joshua Keating: Back in 2008, I couldn’t wait for the presidential election to end. But John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s guilty-pleasure Game Change — crack cocaine for political junkies — is actually making my nostalgic for all those primary nights. Bring on the midterms!

Britt Peterson: Via Lorraine Adams, I’m reading a review-essay on one of my favorite blogs, 3 Quarks Daily, about the Dalit caste, or the untouchables, in India. Coupled with a useful historical account of the origins of India’s caste system, the piece describes a newly vocal group of Dalit authors who are challenging a long-hardened social order. The author, Namit Arora, describes his own childhood experiences with caste: “[The latrine-cleaners] brought their own utensils and placed them on the floor; my mother served them while they stood apart. When my mother turned away, they quietly picked up the food and left. To my young eyes this seemed like the natural order of things.”

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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