Joel Dreyfuss

For this American in Paris, presidential politics, French-style, have been a sharp reminder that this country retains its peculiarities despite globalization. Wednesday night, President Nicolas Sarkozy faced off against his challenger Francois Hollande in a bitter, no-holds-barred, nearly three-hour debate that could not have been more different from the carefully...

Maybe the fear is the first thing people forget as time passes. That would help explain the outbursts of dictatorship nostalgia we are witnessing, whether in the old Soviet Union, in Iraq or now -- maybe -- in Haiti, with the dramatic re-entrance of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier into its...

This post originally appeared at The Root.

I am lost in Port-au-Prince. This is the city where I was born, where I lived as a child, where I came back to live in my 20s, and where I have returned to visit a couple of dozen times since...