Ross Douthat's column, "Life after the end of history" (Views, Nov. 10), is thoughtful, but his basic premise is flawed.
Dramatic and richly researched, this history views the sixteenth-century Mediterranean through the lens of a single extended Albanian family that wielded influence in both of the region's dominant powers — the Ottoman Empire and the Venetian Republic.
Major-Ball, who looked a lot like his distinguished brother, was an apparently unselfconscious man, who radiated the qualities of Middle England, but was certainly never restrained in revealing his history, views and interests.
But by then I knew that the Blairs' survival in Downing Street, and how history views them, matters more to them than anything else, and in those circumstances everyone is expendable.
Popular history views Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch as a fearless war correspondent, author of the brave, censor-evading letter that led to the evacuation of the Anzac force from Gallipoli at the end of 1915, and, later, as a successful media magnate.
The way the balloting unfolds over the next month and a half won't just influence the way history views the past twenty years of baseball; it could end up calling into question the role and value of the Hall of Fame itself.
