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Primo Levi, The Periodic Table

In order for the wheel to turn, for life to be lived, impurities are needed, and the impurities of impurities in the soil, too, as is known, if it is to be fertile. Dissension, diversity, the grain of salt and mustard are needed… Primo Levi, The Periodic Table

Our Life Was Divided

Stefano Luconi, Transatlantica, 2014 Introduction Migration studies have dismissed the somewhat uncritical and romantic celebration of the heroic saga of the political expatriates as professional revolutionaries who traveled the world to spread the “Idea” and allegedly lived adventurously on the…

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Max Ascoli’s The Reporter

The Max Ascoli Papers at Boston University (from The Bridge) Max Ascoli (1898-1978) created The Reporter in 1949, a magazine that became a leading voice for liberalism in America for the next 20 years. Special Collections contains the editorial files…

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The Salvador E. Luria Papers

Pioneering microbial geneticist Salvador Edward Luria was born Salvatore Luria in Turin, Italy, on August 13, 1912, the second son of David Luria, an accountant, and his wife Esther. His school years coincided with the rise of fascism in Italy,…

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Primo Levi, Mountain Rebel

Levi's experience as a partisan—and the execution of two teenage boys—showed him humans' capacity for extreme violence.  Gavin Jacobson, December 15, 2015 In September 1943, Primo Levi took to the mountains in northwest Italy to escape the Nazis. A keen mountaineer…

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