by Helen Kain | Apr 4, 2026 | Carousel Ideas & Systems, The Continental Thread
It is easy to picture Rome at its height — luxurious baths, roads stretching to eternity, and spectacles in the Colosseum — an empire that seems to have been running perfectly well. Which makes its “fall” feel abrupt, almost inexplicable. But Rome did not stop because...
by Helen Kain | Mar 14, 2026 | France, The Continental Thread
When the roof of Notre-Dame de Paris caught fire in April 2019, the images traveled around the world almost instantly. People watched the flames climb through the timber framework, watched the spire collapse, and wondered — for a moment — whether something...
by Helen Kain | Mar 1, 2026 | Carousel Ideas & Systems, Early Middle Ages (410-1066), The Continental Thread
For a long time, I thought of what followed Rome’s departure from England as collapse — full stop. The so-called “Dark Ages.” Civilization slipping backwards into mud and thatch as roads were abandoned and stonemasonry was forgotten. That view turns out to be...
by Helen Kain | Feb 8, 2026 | Carousel Ideas & Systems, Italy, Recent, The Continental Thread
My first trip to Rome included our son Adam and his then-fiancée Annie. They had both been before—Annie in particular is travel-obsessed in the most admirable way—and they undertook to show us Rome in a single day. Though (probably because) we were neophytes, Glenn...
by Helen Kain | Jan 27, 2026 | Carousel Ideas & Systems, Greece, Recent, The Continental Thread
My working impression of Greece was embodied in the Vatican’s fresco The School of Athens by Raphael. In it, Socrates (left) argues in the crowd, Plato points upward toward higher truths beyond the visible world, and Aristotle, his hand held level, grounds philosophy...
by Helen Kain | Jan 18, 2026 | Carousel Ideas & Systems, Italy, The Continental Thread
Turin was not supposed to be the point. This was a Northern Italy trip with friends — Bill and Maura — the kind of people who have already seen most things, lived in most places, and are not easily impressed. Americans, but only technically so: twenty-three years...
