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Bonn, November 23—We are still walking in sleep here. I keep thinking of this old poem:
Quhen Alexandre our kynge was dede
That Scotland lede in lauch and le,
Away was sons of alle and brede,
Of wyne and wax, of gamyn and gle.
Our golde was changit into lede.
Crist, borne into virgynitie,
Succoure Scotlande and ramede
That is stade in perplexite.
This Issue
December 26, 1963
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Best of The New York Review, plus books, events, and other items of interest
More by Neal Ascherson
A painstaking investigation into twelve prisoners who tunneled to freedom from the Nazis in Lithuania reveals how much of their story remains unknowable.
October 9, 2025 issue
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March 27, 2025 issue
Timothy Garton Ash’s Homelands traces the development of his passionate identification with Europe and the continent’s unsteady experiments with unity.
December 21, 2023 issue
More by Neal Ascherson
A painstaking investigation into twelve prisoners who tunneled to freedom from the Nazis in Lithuania reveals how much of their story remains unknowable.
October 9, 2025 issue
We know who the Nazis were and what they did. In Hitler’s People, the distinguished historian Richard J. Evans seeks to explain what made them capable of doing it.
March 27, 2025 issue
Timothy Garton Ash’s Homelands traces the development of his passionate identification with Europe and the continent’s unsteady experiments with unity.
December 21, 2023 issue
Neal Ascherson is an Honorary Fellow of University College London. (October 2025)
This Issue
December 26, 1963
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