A former South African paramilitary commander looks across his dining room table into the interviewer's camera. He is in his early sixties, overweight, with short gray hair. He wears glasses and a polo shirt. It's late morning. He explains: "We were at war. We believed that if the Blacks were...

I feel sorry for the kids today who are taking geography in school for the first time. When I was in school, unless you got really interested in the history of Iraqi Kurdistan, there was a chance you could get all the way through geography class without ever having to know learn to spell Sulaymania.

James Luther Adams, from "The Evolution of My Social Concern." Used with permission, Herbert F. Vetter, Harvard Square Library....

In 1789, Hosea Ballou attended the Baptist revival held in his hometown of Richmond, New Hampshire. Moved by the preaching during this event, which was touted as "The Great Reformation," Ballou, age 19, stepped forward to be baptized....

Charles Chauncy was the leading opponent of the Great Awakening, the Protestant evangelical movement that swept through the British North American colonies between 1739 and 1745. Chauncy was born into the elite Puritan merchant class that ruled Boston....